Disruptions affect turnout in Blantyre

At long last! Blantyre residents who failed to cast their votes on the official polling day as a result of failure by the Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) to supply them with materials on time finally voted Thursday.

Some of the affected areas included Blantyre South West, Blantyre City South East, Blantyre City Central and Blantyre Malabada constituencies.

A visit to polling centres by The Nation team on Thursday morning found that voting was underway although there were few voters.

Presiding officer at Chiwembe Housing Polling Centre, Egrina Dziwani, said the centre, which was opened at 11am, registered a drop in the number of voters who turned up to cast their ballots.

“We had many voters on the first day, but since we resumed today, very few people have come to vote,” said Dziwani.

She said she suspected disruption of the voting exercise played a part in frustrating the voters.

The situation was the same at Makata Primary School Polling Centre in Ndirande where only a handful people cast their ballots.

Presiding officer at Makata, George Nandolo, said the centre received close to 10 000 voters on the official day, but only a few returned to vote on the second day.

However, the situation was different at Namame School Polling Centre where voters turned up in large numbers.

The centre’s presiding officer Lucius Mpingasa said people started voting at 9am and that everything was progressing well.