Nice attacks politicians for unfulfilled promises
The National Initiative for Civic Education (Nice) Trust has laid the blame for voter apathy on politicians who promise electorates the moon when seeking public office.
Nice has since expressed fear of voter apathy in the 2019 Tripartite Elections due to ‘citizens’ fatigue’ following mass registration exercises for national identity cards (IDs) and SIM cards.
Nice expressed the sentiments in Lilongwe yesterday during a news conference.
Nice executive director Ollen Mwalubunju said elected leaders have sometimes given people wrong expectations for the sake of garnering votes.
He said: “Our approach is to sensitise communities to vote for quality leadership. We have focused on empowering citizens to understand the roles of different cadres of leadership; presidency, MP and councillors so that no one takes advantage of the people’s ignorance to make empty promises.”
He also faulted the entrenched culture of handouts as another element which has given voters a wrong impression of the role of elected leaders.
A 2005 Nice Trust report showed that 48 out of every 100 eligible citizens did not vote because they were frustrated with unfulfilled needs.
In an interview, Nice regional civic education officer (Centre) Christopher Naphiyo said the trust is currently embarking on a mapping exercise to locate already existing opportunities to engage citizens.
During the news conference, Nice Trust highlighted some of its achievements, including reduced rate of null and void votes pegged at one percent in the 2014 Tripartite Elections which, Mwalubunju said, was less than the international standard of three percent.
The Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) launched the 2019 Tripartite Elections in February this year and Nice Trust is one of the institutions accredited to provide voter and civic education to masses.
In a telephone interview yesterday, MEC chief elections officer Sammy Alfandika said it would be difficult to point out real causes of apathy without a survey. He said while Nice’s observations could be right, a study would help inform strategies.
“It is possible all these factors can lead to apathy, but we need a survey to establish factors so that we can argue based on evidence. We also need to understand clearly that is apathy based on registered voters or just eligible voters. If it is about registered voters I think the turnout is improving but this could be misleading to say there is low voter apathy. In past elections, we just estimated the number of eligible voters because of lack of national census, but the 2018 census will give us a better indication of how many of the eligible voters turn up for voting” he said.
In an interview, Public Affairs Committee (PAC) executive director Robert Phiri said there is need to empower citizens to vote for quality leadership with integrity.
“If leaders have integrity we do not see a reason why they should lie to voters for the sake of votes. We need leaders who can deliver for people to see a reason to vote” he said.
