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‘Registration exercise was successful’

Mwafulirwa: We have no plans to reopen registration centres
Mwafulirwa: We have no plans to reopen registration centres

In this interview, Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) director of media and public relations Sangwani Mwafulirwa explains to PAIDA MPASO some of the anomalies that affected the just-ended voter registration exercise for the forthcoming tripartite elections.

Q

How has been the entire registration process?

A

Registration of voters for the May 20 Tripartite Elections has been successful if considered from two fronts. First is that turnout has been impressive. We were building a new voters’ roll and that meant everyone had to go and register. It was not a small task to mobilise everyone who was eligible to go and present themselves for registration. We are glad that the figures that we have achieved so far are above those that we had in 2010 and we are almost close to our projections for the elections.

 

Q

Has MEC registered everyone who was supposed to be registered?

A

Although we have not finished compiling the statistics for phase nine, we are quite sure that they will not be a complete departure from what has been the normal trend with all the other phases. By the end of phase eight, we had registered 6 756 528 voters. This is 115.87 percent of 5 831 254 voters which we had in 2010.

The total registered voters for the eight phases is also 94.01 percent of the projected total for the eight phases which was 7 186 773. We are optimistic that with the totals for phase nine, we should be getting beyond seven million.

Secondly, the registration exercise has been a success because it has finished earlier than planned. Initially the commission had planned for 10 phases which were ending in January 2014.

 

QThere have been challenges faced during registration and some stakeholders and political parties have been calling on the commission to reopen the centres for registration. What are you doing about it?

A

In a big exercise where you are deploying more than 800 teams, the challenges faced such as equipment failure are a normal occurrence but what can be worrying is the down time and frequency of occurrence. The commission prepared in advance for this by training more technicians who were placed at council level [while] in some districts with difficult terrain, the technicians were placed at constituency level. All this was done in an attempt to reduce down time.

It should also be noted that it is not every fault that occurs at a registration centre which halts the process. In some centres, there were more than one team which meant that they could share equipment and registration could still flow.

 

QWhat happened to centres where registration was halted?

A

For centres where registration was affected for a full day, the commission advised all registration staff that the day or days should be compensated at the end of the phase. That is why in some cases, the commission announced extensions for some centres.

In some centres, there was demand-driven extension whereby if there were people at a centre on the last day and we were unable to process their registration the same day, registration was extended to the next day until all people had registered.

So, there were measures to compensate for the challenges faced. Therefore, the call for extension, in view of the said mitigation measures, could not be justified.

 

QIs there hope for people who have not yet registered?

A

The commission has no plans to reopen registration centres at the moment. The commission opened centres for 14 days and did everything possible to keep them open. We feel all those who were willing to register did so.

 

Q

Now that registration is over, what next?

A

The commission will be compiling a voters’ register and we expect to open the centres nationwide in March 2014 for all registered voters to go and verify their details in the register. We will open all the registration centres and this will also be the period when people will process transfers after which we will not allow anyone to transfer.

 

Q

Is one enough for the verification exercise?

A

The five-day period is enough for people across the nation to verify their details. If it took us two weeks to register (that is taking pictures of voters and capturing their details), just checking if the details are correct should not be a very involving task. We know there will be instances where some will find their details with some mistakes, but we expect this to be very minimal because, this time around, we employed quality control managers who were checking the quality of the data at field capturing stage and were correcting any mistakes. If we got it right at the field data capture, the computer will not get it wrong.

Q

What is the procedure if one wants to transfer to a different polling centre?

A

The voter verification period, which will be in March 2014, is the only window which has been provided by the commission for registered voters to request and process transfers.

For one to transfer, they will only need to go with their voter certificate to the centre where they wish to cast their vote and inform the supervisor that they wish to process a transfer. If one knows that on the polling day, May 20 2014, they will be away from the centre they registered, it is advisable for them to locate the nearest centre where they will be on the polling day so that they know where to process their transfer during the inspection period.

After voter verification, the commission will not process any transfer except for special cases of staff who will be involved in managing the actual process of voting like the police, Malawi Defence Force and MEC staff because they would have been assigned to work in places other than where they are registered.

 

QWhen will nomination be conducted?

A

Nomination papers will be ready for collection by all aspiring independent candidates in all district, city, municipal, and town councils from January 16, 2014. For all political-party sponsored candidates, they will collect the nomination papers from their secretaries general. The actual receipt of nomination papers by constituency returning officers for the Parliamentary and Local Government Elections will be from 10th to 14th February, 2014. For aspiring presidential candidates, they will present their nomination papers to the commission during the same period.

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