MEC shuts door
The Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) on Tuesday shut the door on new supplementary voter registration for the September 16 General Elections, saying there were no challenges to warrant extension.
Speaking in an interview on Tuesday, MEC director of media and public relations Sangwani Mwafulirwa said the commission is satisfied that it has given everyone an opportunity to register.

He, however, could not specify the benchmarks against which it measured its satisfaction.
“The way forward is to compile the voters’ register, bring all details together and remove duplicates,” said Mwafulirwa.
Section 4(3) of the Presidential, Parliamentary and Local Government Elections Act mandates the commission to conduct voter registration for a maximum of 14 days.
The commission conducted the supplementary voter registration exercise to satisfy the High Court ruling of October 25 2024 requiring potential voters without national identity (ID) cards to register with the National Registration Bureau and thereafter with the commission.
On Tuesday, opposition political parties expressed discontent with the just-ended supplementary voter registration, saying it did not address challenges faced during the initial exercise, with others calling for reopening of the process.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), UTM Party and Alliance for Democracy (Aford) on Tuesday said they were concerned with MEC’s management of the supplementary registration exercise, which targeted 271 854 people, as it was characterised by low turnout.
DPP publicity secretary Shadric Namalomba on Tuesday described the just-ended exercise as a waste of resources and wondered why MEC went ahead with the exercise when it did not have the support of electoral stakeholders.
He further said the two-day period allocated for each phase was not enough, considering the many areas where people failed to register because of rains.
Said Namalomba: “We demand that the electoral commission should open all centres and give people enough days so that everyone who is eligible to vote should have an opportunity to register.”
In a separate interview, Aford spokesperson Annie Maluwa said her party maintains its stand that the supplementary registration should not have been limited only to those that failed to register due to national ID challenges.
She said there are many people who have been disenfranchised because they were turned away at registration centres on the last day of the initial voter registration as the exercise could not proceed beyond 4 pm.
On his part, UTM publicity secretary Felix Njawala said parties are stakeholders in the electoral process and they have been highlighting challenges affecting voter registration, but were not taken on board.
“We will continue to offer solutions to MEC to ensure a free and fair electoral process, but it will be up to the commission to decide,” he said.
The supplementary voter registration, which cost K7 billion, was conducted in three phases lasting two days each.
During the initial voter registration conducted between October 21 and December 11 2024, MEC registered 7.1 million people in 6 339 centres.