Nice, MEC differ on voter verification analysis

National Initiative for Civic Education (Nice) Trust and Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) have differed on the analysis of the third phase of voter verification exercise in seven districts of the Central Region.

In its analysis, Nice says the situation after the third phase of the voter’s roll verification exercise remains the same as the first phase which was cancelled by MEC as a lot of districts still encounter a lot of the same problems.

Nice Central Region civic education officer Vincent Kalawa said this when he toured Dowa, Mchinji, Ntcheu, Dedza and Ntchisi districts to assess how the exercise is progressing.

But MEC spokesperson Sangwani Mwafulirwa said the exercise is progressing smoothly.

Kalawa said in some constituencies, the voter’s roll has faint pictures, missing information such as names, wrong dates of birth and age.

Said Kalawa: “In some constituencies such as Ntchisi South, Dowa East, Dowa South East, Dowa North East, Mchinji South West, Mchinji East, just to mention a few, a lot of names are missing from the voter’s roll.

“For example, another name was appearing as ZZZ Zzzz. For some people, the date of birth is missing while for others their names were wrongly spelt. For example, the name Lefani was written as Efani, making it difficult to find a name in the voters roll. Wrong gender, age, faint pictures and missing of pictures are other problems which we have discovered.”

But Mwafulirwa said there has been an improvement in the third phase compared to the first phase which was cancelled amid several reported irregularities.

Kalawa’s findings also indicated that the opinion poll by some quarters has led to low turnout of people who come to the centres to verify their particulars in the voter’s roll.

“In most of the constituencies, people are not going to verify their particulars. Most of them explained that the winner was already announced and they see no reason for voting,” he explained.

The third phase of the voter’s roll verification exercise, which is taking place in Ntcheu, Dedza, Mchinji, Ntchisi, Dowa, Lilongwe and Kasungu districts, is scheduled to end this Tuesday.

MEC has also said that verification through SMS and the web will continue up to May 15 2014.