The consolidation of democracy in Africa – resulting from repeated competitive elections and changes of government – has created expectations that political leaders would expand the provision of programmatic social protection targeted at larger populations of the poor rather than extend patronage to smaller groups. Malawi introduced social cash transfers (SCTs) that target the ultra-poor (the poor with labour constraints) in the mid-2000s and experienced a change of government in 2014, after competitive presidential elections won by Peter Mutharika. Since 2014, SCTs have expanded slowly, largely due to the influence of international donors (in coalition with technocrats) who continue to play a primary role in funding and designing social protection interventions. Meanwhile, government remains apathetic to increasing funding citing fiscal constraints. Instead, the government has prioritised spending on farm subsidies that target the active poor (the poor with labour capacity) and the provision of subsidised relief food that targets a large proportion of the population affected by humanitarian crises. The arbitrary designation of who constitutes the ultra-poor in Malawi (i.e. 10% of the poorest households in each district) suggests that this constituency remains electorally insignificant. The Malawian case shows that while democratisation has contributed to the expansion of social provision to the active poor, electoral concerns have militated against the expansion of state supported social protection for the poorest.