Malawi Electoral Commission confident to use national IDs in 2019

Malawi Electoral Commission (Mec) has said it is confident to use biometric registration of the National Registration Bureau (NRB) in the forthcoming 2019 tripartite elections.

Mec Chairperson Justice Jane Ansah told political parties in February this year that should NRB fail to make significant gains in its work by December, the commission would explore other alternatives including rolling out its own biometric voter registration.

The arrangement did not go down well with some political parties with United Democratic Front spokesperson Ken Ndanga accusing Mec of not being in control of the electoral process.

“Mec is the only legally instituted body to conduct elections in the country but, in this case, the success of the elections is dependent on NRB. We do not want a situation where they [Mec] start blaming NRB when things go wrong,” he said.

But Ansah said Tuesday the way things are, it is possible for NRB to conclude the exercise by December as it planned.

She said this will enable Mec to commence its voter registration between February and March.

“We feel NRB is working within the timeline. It is possible for them to conclude their registration by December so that we start our voter registration between February and March,” she said.

Ansah said it would be redundant for Mec and NRB to do separate biometric registration exercises, saying they get funding from the same government and donors.

She noted that NRB is registering all Malawians from 16 years of age while Mec would be registering Malawians of 18 years who are interested to vote.

Ansah added that the citizenship identification cards (IDs) which NRB is issuing have the best security features for the voting exercises.

“The security features on the citizenship cards are the most trusted ones. They have a photograph, date of birth and origin of the holder and no one can tamper with them,” she said.

Biometric system of registration and identification of voters is one of the non-legislative electoral reforms which electoral stakeholders including the Malawi Electoral Support Network have been advocating.