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Stakeholders aim to quell electoral incidents

 

The Malawi Police Service (MPS) and National Initiative for Civic Education (Nice) Trust have designated emergency phone and SMS numbers, respectively, through which Malawians can report incidents related to tomorrow’s elections.

The aim is to track any developments during tomorrow’s tripartite elections for interventions by stakeholders, thereby contributing to the integrity of what are billed to be closely contested polls.

MPS national deputy spokesperson Thomeck Nyaude said with support from United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), each officer-in-charge has received a mobile phone whose numbers have been given to all stakeholders.

Mwalubunju: People can report incidents

He said: “So, if a call comes, there is a ready-team that will rush to such areas to deal with the situation. We want to ensure peaceful elections across the country.”

On their part, Nice Trust has set up an Election Situation Room (ESR) designed to track incidents during elections for intervention by stakeholders.

A statement from Nice Trust, signed by executive ditrector Ollen Mwalubunju,  states that the ESR will use innovative technology platforms to collate data on standard election observation and incidents as they happen around the election from 5002 stationary monitors and 462 roving observers nationwide.

The citizenry will also send reports on incidents through an integrated SMS channel.

Reads the statement: “The Trust has already started receiving issues and incidents from citizens through the following numbers; Airtel users 6466 and TNM users 0888242063.”

Meanwhile, the Malawi Electoral Support Network (Mesn) will on polling day conduct a parallel vote tabulation (PVT).

As part of the exercise, Mesn chairperson Steve Duwa said the network will deploy trained PVT observers to a statistical sample of 800 polling streams nationwid to provide independent verification of the election results as announced by the Malawi Electoral Commission.n

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