Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) is set to roll out pilot voter registration in eight districts in the country as a way of testing their newly acquired registration equipment which will be used during the mass voter registration prior to the September 2025 general elections.
MEC Commissioner, Dr. Emmanuel Fabiano, said this in Balaka on Wednesday during a briefing of the programme to the District Elections Supervisory Committee, the Multi-Party Liaison Committee and the media.
Fabiano said during the pilot exercise, all registered certificates produced will not be given to the owners but rather kept to be destroyed after the exercise.
He said all those that will register during the pilot phase will have to register again when the Commission rolls out the normal voter registration exercise as names registered during the trial phase will be deleted from the system.
“All we want to achieve in the pilot phase is the workability of the new system so that we rectify all problems before the actual registration process which will commence soon.
“Electoral laws were amended which have brought in some changes and the implementation of the voter registration has to take into consideration both systems as well as the equipment,” Fabiano said.
Fabiano dismissed claims by some quarters that the exercise is confusing and is an attempt to rig elections.
“People are free to say what they want but as MEC we have explained and demonstrated this to all parties represented in parliament as well as those not in parliament, they asked questions and we provided the answers,” he added.
According to Fabiano, MEC has been relying on the National Registration Bureau (NRB) equipment for the past eight years and that the Commission would also like to add more activities to their operations such that it was hard to include such an equipment that does not belong to them.
District Chairperson for the Malawi Congress Party (MCP), John Mahata, hailed the MEC for the civic education, saying it was enlightening and important for all electoral stakeholders to know all activities in the electoral calendar.
“We need to positively look into the initiative, rather than bringing out negative traits which will in the end bring more confusion,” he said.
The first phase will begin on Friday September 13, 2024 to Saturday September 14 in districts of Blantyre, Balaka, Neno, Nsanje, Lilongwe, Dedza, Mzuzu and Chitipa.
