The United States of America (USA) has cautioned Malawi to avoid suppressing voters by making voting in the September 16 2025 General Elections too difficult.
US Embassy public affairs officer Grant Phillipp, speaking in an interview in Mzuzu, said any attempts to make voting too demanding would be a cause for concern.
He was responding to a question on the divided views on the use of the national identity (ID) card as the sole identification document for voter registration as prescribed in Section 4 (12) of the Presidential, Parliamentary and Local Government Elections Act.
Phillipp said while the issue is for Malawians to resolve, he was aware of the debate and that their principle is that those that are qualified to register and vote should be allowed to do so.
He said: “In any country, if there is any attempt to suppress voting by making it too difficult, that would be a concern for us. I am not saying that is the case here. I am just saying as a principle, we do not want government suppressing the votes by putting obstacles.
“To the extent that people are peacefully protesting, signing petitions, speaking to their members of Parliament [MPs] or writing to the President, that is how a democracy should work.”
Opposition political parties and some civil society organisations have expressed reservations with the legal provision to restrict eligibility to the national ID, saying the National Registration Bureau (NRB) lacks the capacity to capture all eligible voters in its database.
But NRB has insisted that it has the capacity and that no one will be left out.
In a joint letter to MEC dated September 16 2024, Democratic Progressive Party, United Democratic Front, UTM Party and Alliance for Democracy asked the electoral body to address at least five issues to ensure a smooth and transparent electoral process.
The issues include the capacity of election management devices, lack of independent information and communications technology auditors during the polls, demanded manual transmission of results and use of national IDs as sole identification documents for voter registration.
Phillipp said ahead of the 2025 General Election, it was also crucial for Malawi to have strong institutions such as the courts, which people would have strong confidence in to run free and fair elections.
When asked on the cost implication and possible impact on the electoral calendar if proposals for a review of the law on national IDs were to come into effect, Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) director of media and public relations Sangwani Mwafulirwa said the electoral body was following the existing law.
He said MEC will proceed with all preparations according to what the law provides, such that the commission is scheduled to begin voter registration on October 21 2024 as per electoral calendar.
Said Mwafulirwa: “Stakeholders in the councils under phase one should encourage their people to go and register when the voter registration starts.
“All registration centres will open for 14 days and there will be no extension to the period provided. And people should also remember there will be no voter registration next year.”
In a separate interview, NRB spokesperson Norman Fulatira said they are contented that they have done a ‘great job’, reaching 103 percent based on National Statistical Office population projections.
He said: “There is still time and voter registration is a continuing process. The pockets of unregistered people are very few and we are ready to assist those people.
“Our records show that most of those people saying they have not registered are the same people who already registered at some point. We have written councils to alert chiefs to reach their unregistered population.”
Malawi Electoral Support Network coordinator Andrew Kachaso said it was evident that the NRB has struggled to keep up with the demand for National IDs, leading to a significant portion of the population either not being registered in time or failing to access their IDs.
Meanwhile, political parties earlier this week indicated that they are rallying people to register for both national IDs and voter registration.
