The governing Malawi Congress Party (MCP) and some opposition political parties, notably the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the United Democratic Front (UDF), have differed on the timeframe for the extended period of 2025 general elections voter registration exercises.
On October 30 this year, Malawi Electoral Commission (Mec) Chairperson Annabel Mtalimanja announced, through a press statement, that the commission would extend the first phase of the exercise to address problems that arose during the period citizen registration services were unavailable at voter registration centres.
The electoral body made the decision following the High Court order of October 25 this year.
The court directed the National Registration Bureau (NRB) to start registering new identity card (ID) holders for voter registration instead of doing national ID verification only.
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Initially, NRB was supposed to be offering ID verification services at registration centres.
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MCP spokesperson Jessie Kabwila told The Daily Times yesterday that there is a need for Mec to retake phase one of the exercise.
According to Kabwila, the first phase faced a number of hiccups.
“According to the Malawi Congress Party, the first phase, we believe, needs to be extended. As for the second phase, we believe whatever needed to be done was done properly,” Kabwila said.
She, however, said she could not comment on the third phase of the exercise.
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The third phase is underway in some parts of the country.
On his part, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) spokesperson Shadric Namalomba said there was a need to extend the registration period for all phases.
He said almost all phases have been negatively affected by the problem of fuel shortage.
“We are talking of a period when fuel was scarce to the extent that it was difficult to mobilise Mec staff and [monitors] to go to centres. Some of Mec’s equipment was also affected as some of it uses fuel. Because fuel was scarce, the machines could not operate properly,” Namalomba said.
He also bemoaned delays in the provision of national ID registration services at some voter registration centres.
“Similarly, particularly for phase one, there was no NRB staff at Mec registration centres when we started [voter registration]. Therefore, they were not registering new national ID holders) even when there was a court ruling to the effect that NRB equipment or staff had to be available where Mec was conducting registration. However, they were not there and, where they were there, they were not there in good time,” he said.
UDF spokesperson Dyson Jangia said the party would be happy if phase one and two of the voter registration exercise were retaken.
“We, as UDF, are looking forward to the fact that Mec will at least repeat the registration exercise from phase one and two.
“As for phase three, we haven’t sat down to assess the gravity of problems and regularities which were there,” Jangia said.
Meanwhile, Mec Communications Officer Richard Mveriwa has said the commission would announce the extended timeframe after the completion of phase three of the exercise.
“All these questions shall be answered at the end of the whole voter registration exercise,” Mveriwa said.
Mec embarked on voter registration exercises on October 21 2024 and is expected to wind up the last phase of the exercise on December 11 2024. So far, preliminary figures from the commission indicate that over 4.6 million people registered during phase one and two of the exercise.
