Four opposition parties represented in Parliament have maintained their demand for Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) to allow an independent audit of its information and communications technology (ICT) platform for the September 16 General Election.
The parties, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), UTM Party, People’s Party (PP) and United Democratic Front (UDF) said this week that while MEC is yet to address their demands, they will keep pressing on.
They have asked the electoral body to embark on manual transmission of results for the coming elections.
In an interview yesterday, DPP secretary general Peter Mukhito said the opposition parties will not allow the hybrid transmission of results.
He said since MEC already used the election management devices supplied by Smartmatic to register voters, the opposition parties want the MEC system to be audited to ensure no tampering of the system or data.
Said Mukhito: “We want an independent body to audit the whole process. We want an independent audit to verify what activities have been happening to the register. That is what we are going to do, so it is not a matter of just accepting.”
On how they intend to engage MEC considering that the electoral body already stated its position that it will use hybrid transmission and that it will not allow independent ICT auditors for security reasons, he said the parties have an answer to that but could not reveal what measure they will take.
On his part, PP secretary general Ben Chakhame said the opposition parties’ silence on the matter lately does not mean that they have given up the fight.
“To avoid the electoral body start countering our moves, we will choose to remain quiet as we are but they must be assured that this battle is not over yet,” he said.
UTM spokesperson Felix Njawala said opposition parties are not asking for too much by demanding manual transmission of results as MEC has done that before. He said the opposition will keep pushing MEC to do the right thing.
UDF spokesperson Dyson Jangia said the parties have talked for so long on the matter and the expectation is that MEC should address the concerns.
But MEC spokesperson Sangwani Mwafulirwa said the electoral body has always provided platforms for engagement with electoral stakeholders to address issues. He said that during the engagements with parties, MEC responded to questions that parties had.
He said: “It is our hope and expectation that all matters of electoral concerns are brought to the table during these engagements rather than being raised through external channels where resolution may be less effective.”
Governance expert Moses Mkandawire, who is also an international elections observer, called on MEC to ensure that it irons out issues that parties have before the elections to avoid any disturbances.
MEC has maintained that it will run hybrid transmission of results and it will also provide information to stakeholders at tally centres to enable them follow up and verify the same.
