MCP to take MEC to court over Central Region voter registration

Main opposition Malawi Congress Party (MCP) says it has instructed its lawyers to take pollster, the Malawi Electoral Commission to court over its failure to reopen some registration centres in central region which faced low turn up in the first phase of the exercise.

MCP spokesperson Maurice Munthali said the figures released by MEC shows that 6.8 million people have registered to register in next year’s election down from 7.8 million.

“The reduction is a clear indication that there were flaws. What has come out is exactly what we feared of low voter registration,” he said.

Munthali said voter registration apathy hit Dedza, Kasungu and Salima deemed MCP strongholds.

“We went to the court for redress. The court ordered MEC to come back to us within two weeks but MEC has not come back to us, they are showing no interest to come back to us. They have a sinister motive. They are not even concerned with the reduction of voters in the next year’s election,” said Munthali.

He described MEC as adamant, saying the commissioners do not want to listen to the plight of Malawian.

“They do not even know why they are existing. They exist for Malawians,” said Munthali.

MEC’s negligence was heightened when the pollster lost its biometric voter registration kit recently and was found in Mozambque raising fears that the ruling Democratic Progressive Party is bent to rig the elections.

Chancellor College political science lecturer Joseph Chunga said looking at the current projection, there was need for MEC to consider re-opening some centres.

He said: “For the sake of the credibility of the next government, it would be important to give people a chance to register, especially for all districts and centres with turnout of less than 80 percent.”