HRCC, MaBLEM chair Mkwezalamba laments over registrants poor turn out

LILONGWE-(MaraviPost)-The country’s civil rights groups under the banner Human Rights Consultative Committee (HRCC) and the Malawi Black Economic Empowerment Movement (MaBLEM) has expressed disappointment with the low figures being recorded in almost all voters registration centres currently underway.

The groupings feels the next government will be elected by a minority of the population.

HRCC and MaBLEM Chairperson Robert Mkwezalamba told The Maravi Post in an interview on Sunday, December 8, 2024 that with the minority government “It will be tough for civil rights movement to demand accountability and good governance”.

He made the remarks immediately after registering on Sunday morning at Chambu Primary school, Dzenza in Lilongwe.

Mkwezalamba observes, “Where a government is elected by the majority of the population, demands for accountability, rule of law and consolidation of rights become very easy because the state purely understands that it is indeed ruling on behalf of the majority as opposed to a situation where two million out of an eligible 12 million voting population turned up to do so. This is not fair”.

Mkwezalamba feels that the actions by the opposition political parties, slow rate of Tones Alliance delivery and state of the people’s wellbeing maybe central to the low turn out.

“The timing and approach taken by the opposition parties to demand MEC leadership to resign, suspend registration as well as their demands for the Election Management Devices (EMDs) contract to be cancelled affected greatly the registrants.

“The manner in which the opposition raised these issues showed no hope as if they were not party to the process as a result people bought their views and felt the elections were already rigged hence saw no need to proceed to register as the assertions were that the elections will be rigged and are already being rigged”, he said.

Mkwezalamba urges, “We would like Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC), political party leaders, Center for Multiparty Democracy (CMD) to address the public jointly and openly state the relevance of people to register in readiness for the 2025 polls.

“However, we must agree to open all centres with atleast a day or two for a combing exercise in compensation for this misinformation the opposition parties presented to the public in their careless calls.

Mkwezalamba therefore commended MEC for taking care of its staff who he said expressed appreciation so far and stated they had no serious issues affecting their work.

“Apart from their reflectors not being hit resistant (needing ones with small holes for ventilation) Majority of the workers expressed satisfaction with the support this far while echoing my observations of low turn out. I was told the centre had a projection of over 15,000 registrants but since opening only close to 2,500 had registered.

“There is need for more civic education and awareness for the figures to improve in the remaining days or when extra days are re-opened”.

Mkwezalamba adds, “I further engage NRB to check how they are treating their employees cause their staff seemed to have issues but refused to talk.

“A hungry worker is always an angry person and are less productive, we need to improve their conditions if they are to be effective during the entire process”.

Malawians are currently in phase 3 of the exercise which end on December 11.

However, there has been calls for extension of the exercise in all centres of the phases.

Malawi will go for polls on September 16, 2025.