Malawi votes 2025: is online, mobile voting feasible?

Malawians in diaspora, human rights and civic voter analysts have tipped the Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) to consider introducing online and mobile voting in addition to traditional polling to cut costs and deal with vote fraud and rigging.

Cases of vote rigging and fraud are not new to most Malawians as evidenced by the court-sanctioned Fresh Presidential Elections in 2020. The poll voted in President Lazarus Chakwera, who led the now disbanded Tonse Alliance, a group of nine political parties.

The main cause of the fresh presidential poll was the use of deleting fluid aka Tip-Ex on some result sheets, which signalled that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) tampered with the results.

World over, information and communication technology (ICT) experts, those in the diaspora and voter educators are increasingly presenting such proposa l s to governments and electoral bodies to consider the proposal.

Classic example of this model

Fo r i ns tance, t h i s year, a presentation was made in Bangladesh about accommodating online and mobile voting in the next elections to save taxpayers money.

A local ICT and internet service provider called Bengol Net—which also implements The Malawi Digital Project with funds from the World Bank—made the presentation to the Electoral Commission in Bangladesh to change the electoral voting system.

Bengol.Net Limited’s financial investment in Malawi includes a fibre optic cable installation valued at K876 million, a prior investment of K21 billion, an offer to acquire MTL for K8.5 billion, and plans to rehabilitate MTL with a budget of K89 billion.

In the presentation, the company highlighted that in this voting system, people in any part of the country, likewise in Bangladesh, can vote from any centre through biometrics or national identity card identification for security purposes.

This way, voters in the diaspora will get confirmation that they have voted online through emails because the system will be linked with a database of their passport, government and the department of immigration.

Bengol.Net Limited managing director Mohammed Zafar Abdullah says the suggested voting systems, once connected f rom cent ra l government to rural offices, can run within 13 to 15 years so long as regular maintenance is done. The system can also enable countries to hold polls anytime.

In this context, Zafar Abdullah says the government will acquire two core fiber optic cables of the existing cable network for State needs as well as hiring the best and highest quality software companies in the world.

While Malawi debates about o n l i n e v o t i n g , Bengol . Ne t stresses that the installation of uninterruptible fiber optic network connectivity from the main data centre will allow online voting.

“Digital Malawi Project Phase 1 got concluded in 2024. Once the next project starts, public offices will be under one database and, therefore, be assured that online voting will be embraced if Malawi wants it. The voting power should be in the hands of the public, and with electronic voting anyone will be able to vote,” states Zafar Abdullah.

Analysts take on online voting

A digital culture and political scientist based at the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa and the University of Edinburgh in the United Kingdom, Albert Sharra, agrees with the idea, saying current laws and systems treat Malawians abroad as non-Ma lawians by restricting them from contributing to decision making through voting.

He adds that at a time when the government is banking a lot on diasporic communities through remittances, it equally has to motivate them with laws that value and respect their voices, especially in critical events like elections.

“When bad leaders underperform, citizens rely on relatives abroad to support them. So, living abroad should not be taken as people are disconnected from Malawi or they cease being bonafide Malawians,” argues Sharra.

But Bengol.Net Limited’s Zafar Abdullah insists that the proposed method will see eligible voters of any country residing abroad, including expatriates, participate in the polls online.

He echoes the plight of millions of expatriates in Bangladesh who are denied their right to vote despite making signif icant economic contributions to their motherland.

“The number of expatriates in Bangladesh is more than 10 million. We must remember that this huge amount of foreign exchange contains the smell of sweat and tears of expatriates. But the sad thing is that 10 million expatriates can never participate in the elections,” laments Abdullah.

MEC figures show that the voters’ roll has one million more women than men as 4 113 342 women and 3 087 563 men registered for the September 16, 2025, Malawi General Elections. W hile commending the women for the feat, Maggie Kathewera Banda, NGO Gender Coordination Network board chairperson, also backs the idea of online voting.

“With the world going digital, the country should be willing to embrace the method,” says Kathewera Banda.

For his part, governance and human rights advocate Undule Mwakasungula alludes to the fact that the system holds potential for increased accessibility, particularly for Malawians based abroad who currently cannot participate in the elections.

Online voting fears, challenges

MEC spokesperson Sangwani Mwafulirwa rules out usage of the online or mobile voting system in the September 16 2025 General Elections.

“Voters will be required to avail themselves at the polling station where they registered so that they to vote,” says Mwafulirwa.

While other analysts think it is not practical for the online voting to be used this year, Sharra is of the view that there will be no excuse once the system is adopted.

He says as long as the National Registration Bureau-NRB and MEC have reliable systems that guard against registrations by non-Malawians and non-existing individuals, any citizen with a national ID based in Malawi or abroad should be able to vote.

“This also means departing from the culture of registering people during every election. MEC should be keeping its election data and take it with them to the next elections. Voters should only v i sit the registration centre or fill an online form to confirm their registration for the next election. This also applies to new voters,” he states.

For Kathewera Banda, as Malawi strives to reach that level, she cautions that digitalisation should not lead to a point where others are excluded.

She says: “For example, most women do not have gadgets that would allow them to operate effectively and digitally.”

Mwakasungula, however, is of the view that the move presents some challenges, including cyber-security risks, the digital divide and public trust issues.

“While it may reduce costs, and minimise electoral f raud, robust cyber-security measures and inclusive strategies must be prioritised,” he suggests.

Suggested solutions before adoption

To aver t thi s, according to Mwakasungula, pilot projects should be considered to identify potential chal lenges before nationwide impl ementat i o n , and publ i c awareness campaigns should be key to building confidence in the system.

“Apparently, success of the initiative will depend on transparent stakeholder engagement and continuous investment in security and digital literacy,” obser ves Mwakasungula.

But Sharra notes that the Digital ID programme in Malawi—which has integrated personal information like simcards, National ID (and soon birth and death registry), among others—makes such interventions feasible.

“I think as a country, we should be working towards combing offline and online voting ahead of the 2030 elections. Apart from ensuring there is a reliable mobile phone network and faster internet, we need to work on our cyber-security system to safeguard public data of the electorates,” notes Sharra.

Malawi—through The Malawi Digital Project, facilitated by Public, Private Partnership (PPP), with funds from the World Bank— has piloted free internet services in various public places such as hospitals, schools, higher learning institutions and markets.

Likewise, Bengol.Net and local IT experts are of the view that online voting will be easy to embrace in Malawi since 2023 surveys show there are 5.9 million internet users.

“For instance, one can now check the voting centre on the phone. Thus, it is possible for people to vote using their phones. The vote will be linked to the simcard and national ID which are already integrated through the digital ID programme,” says Prince Phiri, a Malawian IT expert based in the United States of America-USA.

According to Phiri, this means it is easy to monitor duplication and tallying online and offline voting by ensuring that the voter verification that happens before one walks into the voting booth flags or blocks online voting for the same person. Similarly, those who vote online should be blocked automatically by the system from voting again.

Malawi’s current electoral laws will allow usage of traditional polling booths for 7 200 905 registered voters to cast ballots for presidential, parliamentary and ward councillor candidates of their choice.

The electoral body is to spend K162.9 billion (under debate in the ongoing session of the Parliament of Malawi) to conduct polls, a figure some politicians and civic educators say is on the lower side.