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Malawi Electoral Commission and the Malawi Electoral Support Network (Mesn) has said eroding trust in politicians, a messed up registration process and lack of civic education resulted into over 2 million people not voting in the May 20 polls.
According to the latest gazette, 2,3 million out of 5.7 million registered voters did not vote, a worrying trend as compared to 1999 when only 316, 400 out of 5 million did not go to vote. In 1994, 734,591 did not cast their vote out of 3.7 million that voted.
Willie Karonga personal assistant to Commission chairperson James Kalaile on Thursday blamed politicians for the declining interest in voting.
Kalonga said the electorate are tired of voting for people who cannot deliver.
“Imagine in this election, some people were not interested because they believe the people they voted for in 1999 did not deliver, so why vote again?
“We noticed this way back in the 2000 local government elections when only 14 percent of the masses turned out to vote. This year only 59 percent voted, a drop from 94 percent and 93 percent in 1994 and 1999 respectively,” he said.
Kalonga also blamed NGOs for failing to carry out voter education.
“Secondly, NGOs failed to carry out civic education because they were not funded on time. The Commission had to come in last minute and tried but we could not reach all the designated areas because we lacked resources,” said Kalonga.
But Malawi Electoral Support Network (Mesn) chairman Moses Mkandawire attributed the voter apathy to the failure by the Commission to manage the election fairly.
Mkandawire said even before voting started, Mesn noticed that there was going to be voter apathy because of the way the Commission was managing the process.
“They failed to motivate people to register, the whole registration process was a mess, the voters roll had names bearing wrong pictures and in most places people were denied their right to vote,” he said.
Mkandawire also noted that the Commission failed to deal with transfers in most cases and disfranchised people in the process.
Mesn said in a statement that during polling day, most centres had three voters roll and this confused voters.
“In most instances people’s names could not be found on the voters roll and in such cases their were disfranchised,” he said.
Mesn feared the trend is going to continue if the electoral laws, the system governing the process and the composition of the Commission are not reviewed now.
The gazette, released way after the Constitutional requirement of 48 hours after elections, also shows the number of null and void votes.
This year 89,764 out of 3.4 million total votes cast were rejected. In 1999, 91,671 out of 4.7 million were declared null and void. And in 1994, 61,780 were null and void from the total votes cast of 3 million.
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