Political parties have backed the Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) on the choice of the contractor to print, supply and deliver ballot papers and related sensitive materials for the September 16 2025 General Election.
The electoral body has awarded the $11.6 million (about K20.3 bil-lion) contract to AI Ghurair Printing and Publishing LLC, according to a published MEC notice for an intention to award a contract.
The development comes at a time political parties, especially in the opposition, and MEC have differed on the mode of transmission of results and the electoral body’s information and communications technology (ICT) platform. The parties are pushing for an independent auditor, but MEC argues that doing so would compromise its system security.
But in separate interviews on Sunday, the political parties welcomed AI Ghurair Printing and Publishing LLC, observing that it is the same supplier of ballot papers for the 2019 Tripartite Elections and the court-sanctioned fresh presidential election in 2020. Fur-ther, the company has also supplied ballot papers for subsequent by-elections.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) secretary general Peter Mukhito said DPP has no problem with the company.
“As DPP, we are aware of the company and in fact it is not new to us. They did the same in 2019. Their track record is good. As one of the opposition parties we are okay with that,” he said.
Mukhito said his party was yet to analyse the contract sum, but added that they are aware that there is a lot involved in terms of printing and freight.
On his part, UTM Party spokesperson Felix Njawala also said the par-ty is satisfied with the company, adding that the process needs to be done in good time to ensure that the electoral calendar is not affected.
On the contract sum, he said UTM Party directorate of economic af-fairs is analysing it to compare with other countries in the region, what was spent in the past elections and also factoring in the in-crease in the number of constituencies and other factors.
Said Njawala: “Once the analysis is done, we will be able to say if as a party we are OK with the contract sum.
“Otherwise, they supplied in 2019 and 2020, so we have no issues as long as they maintain their professionalism.”
In a separate interview, People’s Party (PP) secretary general Ben Chakhame also said the PP has no issues with ballot papers and the supplier, but insisted that the party still has issues with the electronic transmission of results.
He said with manual voting, it would be imperative that the results should also be transmitted manually.
“Whether people will use a notebook or whatever, it is not of our concern. However, the process of counting and transmission is what matters,” said Chakhame.
On the contract sum, he said the party’s hope is that it is within the budget that was proposed and approved.
United Democratic Front spokesperson Dyson Jangiya said as long as procurement procedures are followed, UDF has no queries on the procurement.
“If everything has been done based on competence of the com-pany then we wouldn’t have any issues. Let us hope they are doing just that,” he said.
Meanwhile, governance analyst Moses Mkandawire, who has worked as an international elections observer, said stakeholder confidence in the company is important as it helps in promoting the elections integrity.
“At the end of the day, it is the satisfaction of the process will lead to fairness, legitimacy, cleanliness as well credibility of the entire election,” he said.
In the 2025/26 National Budget, Treasury has allocated K162.9 bil-lion to MEC to manage the September General Election.
The resources are specifically for polling and the remaining activities in the electoral process, and the allocation represents an increase of 207 percent from the 2024/25 revised provision of K53.1 billion.
