The Malawi Electoral Commission –MEC says it is satisfied with the progress of the parliamentary re-election preparations that are underway in Nkhata-Bay in readiness for the 29th June by-elections.
MEC commissioner Dr Anthony Mkumbwa made the remarks yesterday following a day long tour the authority embarked on in various centres of Nkhata-Bay central constituency to appreciate the commencement of the voter verification exercise that inaugurated on the same date.
“So far so good, there are 19 centres in this constituency and out of those we have inspected today, we haven’t detected any problems.”
“The monitors we have actually interviewed have given positive feedback about the progress of the exercise. Our staff members too have not encountered any major challenges,” he explained.
Dr Mkumbwa then went on by pleading with the political parties to also play their role in intensifying the voter verification information to their followers so that the initiative should achieve its intended goals.
He said: “We are urging the stakeholders more especially the political parties to encourage the potential voters to come forth and verify their names so that they should be able to vote for their preferred member of parliament (MP) come the election.
On the other hand, one of the electorate Esther Mhone of Mngóna village of Traditional Authority (T/A) Mkumbira appealed to her fellow residents in her area to turn out for the exercise as MEC is persuading them through the loud healers in the constituency.
“I have been made aware of the development that we should come forward and verify our names in the voters roll and I have welcomed the news. I thus extent the message to my fellows to follow suit.”
The voter verification exercise for the 29th June, 2021 by-election commenced on 26th May, 2021 and it will run for 14 days in Nkhata-Bay central as the parliamentary seat for the constituency fell vacant following the recent court ruling that the 21st May 2019 parliamentary results for the then tripartite elections (TPE) were marred with some irregularities.
