Over 7m register to vote in 2014 Tripartite Elections

The Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) on Monday announced that it has registered 7 537 548 voters for the forthcoming 2014 Tripartite Elections.

This is 472 186 less than the projected 8 009 743 and represents a 16 percent rise from 6 500 759 registered voters in 2010, according to the press statement.

Reacting to the statement, Malawi Electoral Support Network (Mesn) chairperson Steve Duwa asked MEC to tell the nation why it has not achieved the projected figure. He said 472 186 is a big figure and, therefore, MEC owes Malawians an explanation.

“I am not comfortable that MEC is using 2010 voter registration figures because everybody knows that we had a partial registration and we did not have the full list of [people] who registered. Why then are they using the figures?” wondered Duwa.

He, however, said the registration exercise went well although they received reports that there were problems in some registration centres.

“It was reported that there were camera faults and the process was slow which also affected some people who wanted to register. Before they could tell us the figures, they were supposed to give us enough information on the exercise because we do not know how they treated the problems,” said Duwa, adding that it is difficult to accept the figures until MEC explains to the nation why it has failed to reach the projected figure.

Duwa added that they believe MEC could have reached and even exceed the projected figure.

“We believe many eligible voters were left out because of the way the exercise was handled,” he said.

MEC spokesperson Sangwani Mwafulirwa, however, defended MEC’s using of the 2010 figures, saying it is the latest updated MEC voter figures.

—See MEC Full Statement Here
on end of voter registration drive for the 2014 Tripartite Elections and statistics for total registered voters.