Five opposition political parties have threatened to sue Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) if it will not resolve their complaints and grievances.
The five parties are Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), United Democratic Front (UDF), People’s Party, Alliance for Democracy (Aford) and UTM Party.
In a letter dated March 6 2025 addressed to MEC chairperson Annabel Mtalimanja, who is also a Judge of the High Court of Malawi, the parties have given MEC 14 days to address the complaints and grievances they believe the elections body has ignored.
While MEC said it will respond to the political parties, it is convinced the voter registration exercise went well.
The complaints and grievances the parties have highlighted include alleged MEC’s failure to provide a sample of the pilot voter registration and involve all political parties in destroying data obtained from the pilot exercise.
The disgruntled parties have also bemoaned MEC’s failure to grant their request of involving independent information and communications technology (ICT) auditors to audit its servers to clear out any fears that they would have been compromised when the official voter registration was starting.
MEC turned down the independent auditors request after the opposition political parties’ quest to obtain the sample pilot voter registration data and subsequent involvement in destroying the obtained data had hit a snag.
The parties have expressed concerns that MEC proceeded with voter registration without dealing with their concerns.
Reads part of the letter: “We also reported that during phase two of the registration, most centres delayed to open with others opening [being functional] on the fifth day into the 14 days allocated. Our question was whether a centre that was operational from the fifth day to the 14th day qualified to have satisfied the 14 days of registration period.
“During the meeting we held with Democracy Works Foundation at Lilongwe Hotel and the engagement meeting with Centre for Multiparty Democracy that was held at Sun and Sand in Mangochi, you acknowledged having received such instances and you did assure us that this will be considered when making a determination to re-open registration for phase one.”
But the parties have claimed that despite the assurance on the particular alleged anomaly, it is unfortunate MEC ignored them when a consideration on the supplementary registration exercise was made.
They have further expressed regrets that MEC did not consider alleged inefficiencies by National Registration Bureau (NRB) officers who they claim were not ably assisting eligible voters so that they would proceed with voter registration.
Besides, the parties have also frowned at MEC’s decision not to accommodate people in the supplementary registration exercise who were turned back from registration centres after 4pm.
This, the opposition parties say, has denied Malawians their constitutional right to cast their votes in the September 16 2025 General Election.
“We also requested the commission to come out clearly on why it seems to be changing its own decisions from doing a manual transmission of results as it was done in the 2020 Fresh Presidential Elections and now trying to push for the hybrid system of transmitting results as it was done in 2019 and 2014.
“You may wish to know that a decision to go for manual transmission in 2020 was as a result of issues that made Malawians not trust hybrid electronic transmission of results. We call upon the commission to come out openly as to why it wants to make this surprise contradiction of its own decisions,” reads the letter.
The parties have, therefore, stated that if within 14 days from March 6 2025 MEC will not provide favourable solutions, they will take up the issues with the country’s courts.
They have further said it will be in the interest of Malawians that MEC proceeds with all the electoral processes only after the highlighted complaints and grievances are resolved to ensure a free, fair and credible process.
The signatories of the letter include secretaries general of DPP Peter Mukhito, UDF’s Genarino Lemani, UTM’s Willet Kalonga, PP’s Ben Chakhame and Aford’s Linda Limbe.
In a written response yesterday, MEC director of media and public relations Sangwani Mwafulirwa said: “We have received the letter and will respond to them directly, but be assured the commission is satisfied with the voter registration exercise.
“The country was facing fuel challenges, but the voter registration exercise, like with other essential services, were insulated from the shocks of supply shortages. We got fuel and all centres were open”.
Mwafulirwa said MEC created over 1 000 new centres that brought registration closer to the people and as such, there was no walking of more than five kilometres before getting to a registration centre.
He, therefore, said no one can rise and claim that they failed to register because they had no fuel.
“The law provides for 14 days maximum for voter registration and after that you cannot re-open centres to extend the voter registration regardless of how valid the reasons are,” he said.
