MEC says powerless over political violence ahead of Malawi 2019 polls
Pollster, the Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) says it is powerless to deal with the increasing political violence in the country ahead of the May 21 2019 tripartite election.
MEC chairperson Jane Ansah said the law does not provide for the electoral body to act on political violence outside the campaign period.
“It would be against the law for us to act on the political violence although this is deplorable. At present, we don’t have such powers because we are not yet in the political campaign period window,” she said.
Recently, the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) cadets have been blamed for the torching of a United Transformation Movement (UTM) vehicle and that of a member of parliament in Mzimba Agness Nyalonje who is also a member of the UTM in Mangochi.
The main opposition, the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) has also been engaged in internal squabbles which led to violence and injuries over results of its primary election elections.
Meanwhile, Ansah has told representatives of political parties that Blantyre has registered the lowest number of voters so far.
She said this in Blantyre on Friday when she met the political party representatives who sit on National Consultative Forum.
She said Blantyre has registered 500,000 voters out of the projected over 600000 voters representing a 73% registration rate.
Director of Elections in DPP Ben Phiri blamed political parties for their failure to galvanise their supporters to go and register.
