MEC to compensate 1 day lost in first phase of voter registration: MCP says not enough
e Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) says it will revisit registration centres in the seven districts for voter registration exercise to compensate for a day it missed during the first phase due to a pending COVID-19 lockdown.
In a statement released on Thursday, MEC chief elections officer Sam Alfandika said the Commission will do that after the last phase of registration exercise.
“The Commission is aware that phase one ended prematurely and it will revisit the Councils after the last phase of voter registration to ensure that all registration centres have ran for the minimum of statutory period of 14 days,” reads part of the statement.
Phase one of voter registration exercise took place in Chitipa, Karonga, Salima, Dedza, Blantyre, Chikwawa and Nsanje from April 4 to 16 instead of April 17 as MEC abruptly stopped the exercise after government had imposed a 21 day lockdown that was later challenged in court by Human Rights Defenders Coalition (HRDC) to check the spread of COVID-19 that so far has killed three people out of the 33 cases recorded in Malawi.
However, the country’s two major political parties have received the news with mixed reactions.
In an interview, Malawi Congress Party (MCP) secretary general Eisenhower Mkaka said the one day compensation is not enough as National Registration Bureau (NRB) deployed its officers to the seven districts one week after the exercise had begun.
“Much as we are happy with the development, as a party we would be much grateful if MEC had also extended registration exercise for NRB to ensure that every eligible person is registered into voter’s register considering that it took almost one week for NRB to deploy its officers to centres So, to be fair, they could have added five more days,” Mkaka said.
While the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) spokesperson Nicholas Dausi said his party just follows what MEC says in its electoral calendar.
However, MEC spokesperson Sangwani Mwafulirwa in an interview said the decision whether to extend voter registration or not will be made by the Commission.
This commission is dictatorial and forces itself on people. To hell with them.
What has NRB got to do with registration for elections? Those that have no ID should go now to NRB now
The 1 day is just to complete the 14day process that was stopped at 13days
Jane Ansah very principled lady. I salute you. Anything that is political and emotional will slowly fade away. Thus the truth!!!
DPP is on the back of MEC that is why we are saying this MEC can not be trusted any more to run elections. If Dausi says they are just following what MEC is saying is sad development.