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Road to 2019: MEC dismisses voter apathy fears

 

The Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) says it has implemented several administrative reforms to address challenges that led to voter apathy during previous elections.

MEC commissioner Moffat Banda disclosed this in an interview last evening following earlier sentiments by some experts that political and voter enthusiasm is almost nonexistent in the country, a development that could have a negative impact on the 2019 Tripartite Polls which were also launched yesterday.

This also follows recent survey findings by pan-African research network, Afrobarometer, which established that popular support for elections in the country has dwindled among Malawians over the last decade due to, among others, quality of the polls.

Banda: We will rectify challenges

According to Afrobarometer, the decline in the vote popularity is partially attributed to the deteriorating quality of elections over the years due to a combination of factors, including dissatisfaction with elections and politics, lack of interest and fatigue among voters, the feeling that voting makes no difference and the belief that elections are not free and fair.

The survey, released in May 2017, discovered that the proportion of citizens who believe elections are the best way of choosing political leaders dropped from 78 percent in 2008 to 57 percent in 2017, while the figure dropped from 73 percent in 2012 to 71 percent in 2014.

But reacting to the development, Banda, who is  also chairperson of MEC’s media and civic education, played down fears of a possible high voter apathy in May 2019 Tripartite Elections.

He said MEC is geared towards increasing participation in the polls by, among others, rectifying various challenges that potentially force people to abscond electoral processes.

“What we have done as a commission is to reform all the noticeable administrative reasons behind people not participating in the registration, verification as well as the actual voting. With these reforms, we feel people will be encouraged to vote in 2019,” said Banda without elaborating on the stated reforms.

He said 2019 will yield good percentages of voters as opposed to previous elections due to a concrete civic and education exercise that MEC intends to run ahead of the polls alongside its various stakeholders, including civil society organisations (CSOs).

But  head of political and administrative studies at Chancellor College of the University of Malawi (Unima), who is also among the lead researchers for Afrobarometer, Happy Kayuni, cautioned that Malawi risks facing similar challenges encountered in the 2014 polls following the rejection of the Elections Bills by Parliament last year.

“There were several other proposals that were put forward in order for us to have better elections in future, but they were rejected and obviously they will not be implemented by 2019.

“This is very sad because some of the challenges that MEC faced in 2014 were supposed to be rectified by these reforms,” he said.

Meanwhile, MEC has attributed the low voter enthusiasm to general relaxation among several stakeholders, including political parties. n

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