MCP wins two wards amid voter apathy
Malawi Congress Party (MCP) has won two of the three wards contested in the Tuesday Local Government By-elections that registered a 32 percent voter turnout in Chitipa, Karonga and Balaka districts.
Making the announcement in Mzuzu yesterday, Malawi Electoral Commission chairperson Chifundo Kachale said MCP candidates Ronald Kayira and Elisha Winga won the Wenya Ward in Chitipa and the Lupembe Ward in Karonga, respectively.
He said United Democratic Front candidate Dickson Jackson Wasili won the Shire Ward in Balaka.
Kayira amassed 1 663 votes to see off Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate Cremsad Kayira who got 304 votes, UTM Party’s Henry Ng’ambi 222, Alliance for Democracy’s Ginford Munthari with 207 and Mike Kapira of Freedom Party, who polled 89 votes.
In Lupembe, Winga narrowly defeated UTM candidate Atusaye Mwenifumbo with 1 591 votes against 1 542 votes. And in Shire Ward in Balaka, Wasili got 2 545 votes against DPP’s Ishamael Mpinda with 1 922 votes who was his close contender.
However, Kachale, a judge of the High Court of Malawi, expressed discontent that no woman or person with disability was on the ballot despite the commission putting in place various affirmative measures to promote participation in politics of women and persons with disabilities.
He also said there was absence of the lobby and advocacy groups for women representation.
Commenting on voter apathy, Kachale said 32.46 percent of the registered voters turned out, meaning that at least 68 percent of the registered voters did not cast their ballots.
“These trends are not too surprising for Local Government By-elections. As a commission, we have always made efforts to encourage people to come and participate in the by-elections, especially to recognise the value of local government councillors as important players in the governance and administration of their councils,” he said.
In separate interviews, election observers said voter apathy in Local Government Elections, or by-elections in general, has always been the trend historically.
The commentators singled out the 2000 Local Government Elections of 2000 that were marred by voter apathy, with a low turnout of 14.2 percent of the 5.2 million registered voters.
National Initiative for Civic Education Trust acting executive director Grey Kalindekafe said the time when Malawi didn’t have councillors created “a bad precedent in as far as the importance of the councillors is concerned”.
He said: “We just want to plead with electoral stakeholders so that we find a solution to this issue because councillors are very important in fostering local development and democracy in the country.”
In the elections, five candidates contested in Wenya, four in Lupembe and six in Shire.
The seats fell vacant following the death of the elected representatives.
There was a total of 37 844 voters in all the three wards and 12 284 voter turned out, represented 32.46 percent of the registered voters.
