Malawi Electoral Commission shifts voter registration

By Pemphero Malimba:

The Malawi Electoral Commission (Mec) has announced that it will not commence the voter registration exercise next month.

The exercise was initially set for September this year.

Mec Chairperson, Judge Annabel Mtalimanja, announced this yesterday during a National Elections Consultative Forum (Necof) meeting held in Lilongwe.

Mtalimanja said this follows the rescheduling of the pilot voter registration exercise, which was planned to start today.

“The actual voter registration will not commence in September as initially planned. The commission will announce the revised start date for the main voter registration after the pilot [phase] has concluded and any issues identified during the pilot [phase] have been resolved,” she said.

Mtalimanja said the move had been taken to allow the commission to test Election Management Devices (EMD).

“The reason we have rescheduled [the exercise] is because we want to conduct the pilot voter registration using the EMDs and we want to test their usability in the different conditions that we are going to use [them],” she said.

She expressed optimism that the move would not affect electoral processes.

“The rescheduling of the pilot voter registration exercise by a couple of weeks is not going to impact the polling calendar; everything is going to proceed smoothly,” she said.

However, Democratic Progressive Party director of elections Gladys Ganda challenged the commission to expedite processes.

“They (Mec) need to do it quickly because there is a need for us to engage our people to understand what the whole issue is all about,” Ganda said.

On his part, Youth and Society Executive Director Charles Kajoloweka urged Mec to stick to its calendar.

“It is our hope that Mec willstick to its calendar so that there is predictability, in terms of the calendar, and that the subsequent activities are not affected by adjustments that are being made,” Kajoloweka said.

Mec will conduct the pilot voter registration exercise in 100 registration centres across eight selected councils in the country.