MESN demands full voters’ register before polls day
With just two days left before Malawi go to the polls, local NGO Malawi Electoral Support Network (MESN) has demanded the availability of full voters’ register to all stakeholders before the election day.
MESN has also asked the Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) to publicly commit to releasing not only aggregate results from all the 4 500 polling stations but also making them available on its website immediately after the polls.
Speaking to the press in Blantyre on Friday, MESN chairperson Steve Duwa said publicly exposing the voters’ register before May 20would encourage openness and public trust.
“To promote even greater transparency and public confidence in the process, MESN calls upon MEC to make the full voters’ register available to all stakeholders in advance of the Election Day,” Duwa said.
The chairman also said MESN was deploying about 7000 MEC accredited local monitors to all the polling stations and more than 11 500 polling streams for the May 20 elections to ensure the integrity of the process.
Besides conducting a Parallel Vote Tabulation (PVT), an advanced scientific methodology involving deployment of observers to an 800 representative random sample of polling stations across the country, MESN will also operate a “Situation Room” to serve as an early warning system on issues that may arise during the day so that action could be taken to address the problems.
According to Duwa, the network will also deploy 1 500 short term observers at a wide array of polling stations across the country and at MEC district collation centres to enhance transparency and improve accountability.
Since February 2014, MESN has deployed 84 long term observers who have been observing the electoral process that included campaigning, nomination of candidates and verification of voter’s roll.
