Parties rally followers for voter registration
Political parties in the country say they have embarked on a campaign to mobilise eligible voters to register for the September 16 2025 General Elections.
This follows a Malawi Electoral Commission’s (MEC) announcement that it will begin phase one of the voter registration exercise on October 21.
In an interview yesterday, Alliance for Democracy (Aford) national publicity secretary Annie Maluwa said they are using mass political rallies and meetings in their local structures to encourage followers that they need to register to be able to elect leaders of their choice.
She said: “However, we want MEC to be adequately prepared so that challenges such as faulty machines and network glitches, which we have seen in civil registration, should not also be experienced during the voter registration.”
In separate interviews, People’s Party publicity secretary Ackson Kalaile Banda, Malawi Congress Party (MCP) publicity secretary Jessie Kabwila and UTM Party publicity secretary Felix Njawala also said they are using their mass rallies, community meetings and local structures to lobby followers to register.
Kabwila said the governing party is going into villages to remind people of their civic duty to register and inform them about the centres where registration is taking place.
“As for the registration exercise itself, we want MEC to ensure that the process is transparent and that there is no interference so that many people should be able to register,” she said.
During Mulhako wa Alhomwe cultural festival in Mulanje on Sunday, former president Peter Mutharika, who is also Democratic Progressive Party leader, encouraged people to register when voter registration begins in their respective areas if they are to exercise their right to elect leaders of their choice next year.
Yesterday, the parties also said they would want the National Registration Bureau (NRB) to deploy officers in voter registration centres so that people who do not have national identity (ID) cards are able to register.
The call comes on the back of Section 4 (12) of the Presidential, Parliamentary and Local Government Act which states that a person eligible to be registered as a voter in an election needs to have a valid national ID issued by NRB as proof of eligibility.
Phase one of the voter registration exercise will run from October 21 to November 3 2024 and cover 14 councils, including Mzuzu City, Nkhotakota, Ntchisi, Salima, Balaka, Machinga, Chiradzulu, Neno, Phalombe and Mulanje.
Phase two will be conducted from November 9 to 22 2024 in 14 councils while the final phase will run from November 28 to December 11 in eight councils.