6.8 million voters registered for Malawi 2019 polls: MEC says youth in majority

The Malawi Electoral Commission (Mec) has said it has registered a total of 6 826 295 million eligible voters for the May 21 2019 Tripartite Elections, representing an 81 percent of their projection.

According to a statement of figures released by MEC spokesman Sangwani Mwafulirwa made available to Nyasa Times, of the total registered voters, 3.7 million  are youth, while 2.1 million are females and 1.6 are male, representing 54 percent of the total registered voters.

MEC has however asked stakeholders to expect the preliminary figures to change after a clean-up of the voters roll for multiple registrants.

“These are preliminary figures and there will be revisions as MEC undertakes a cleaning exercise for multiple registrants,” Mwafulirwa said.

The statistics indicate that Central Region Kasungu registered 325 301, Salima 170 427, Dedza 302 623, Dowa 325 062, Nkhotakota 178 606, Mchinji 241 490, Ntchisi 129 980, Lilongwe 1 013 414 and Ntcheu 228 579.

In the Southern Region, Blantyre has 498 999, Mwanza 48 325, Chikwawa 258 968, Balaka 155 754 and Neno 55 998 registered voters.

The so called Lhomwe belt has 279 128 for Thyolo, Phalombe 167 613, Mulanje 281 167.

The Yao-land in the Eastern Region has 402 163 for Mangochi, Zomba 319 294, Machinga 250 973.

Other districts in the southern region have 145 528 for Nsanje and 145 674 in Chiradzulu.

In the Northern Region, Chitipa has 95 777, Karonga has 146 587, Rumphi 96 753, Mzimba 478 435, Likoma 6 946 and Nkhata Bay 106 731 voters.

MEC opened the registration exercise in June this year and it ended on November 9.

Main opposition Malawi Congress Party (MCP) pressed MEC to consider reopening the registration exercise in the first phase districts where thousands of people failed to register.

National Initiative for Civic Education (Nice) Trust was one of the organisations that carried out civic and voter education and conducted a survey which established that the low turnout resulted from frustrations among the electorate with the performance of elected leaders.