The first day of voter registration exercise in Chiradzulu was characterized by high turnout in certain areas as well as low turnout in some centres.
A visit to some centres out of the 85 showed that people were reluctant to partake in the process while in some cases high turnout was recorded.
For instance, at Montfort primary school centre, despite registering no challenge, people were reluctant to go and register.
In an interview at around 2 O’clock in the afternoon, Supervisor of the Centre, Robert Njiwawo, said people were not coming in good numbers to register because it was the first day.
“I believe starting tomorrow, Tuesday, people will be coming in their large numbers. At least by now they are aware of the exercise,” he said.
However, at Chikankheni centre, at least 125 people had already been registered, 2 hours before the official closing time of 4 O’clock.
According to the officials there, people are excited with the process and at the same time they are eager to vote.
At Chanza registration centre, people were turned away few minutes after the commencement of the exercise due to a faulty generator.
Supervisor for the centre, Andrew Sitima, said people came at the centre even before the start of the process but a few minutes into the exercise the genset developed a fault.
However, Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) sent another generator to the centre and the exercise will resume today.
Meanwhile, Democratic Progressive Party is the only party that has placed monitors at the visited registration centres.
This is contrary to MEC’s call to political parties to place their monitors at the centres for transparency purposes.
