The Malawi Electoral Commission (Mec) has released a draft calendar for 2019 presidential, parliamentary and local government elections.<\/p>\n
Speaking during the first National Elections Consultative Forum (Necof) meeting in Lilongwe yesterday, Mec Chairperson, Jane Ansah, said the Commission is geared to deliver free, fair, transparent, credible, cost-effective and inclusive elections in 2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut to achieve that it will also depend on the support it is receiving from all stakeholders. If we do not get timely financial and material support, then we are failing to plan for the 2019 elections.<\/p>\n
\u201cLeaders of political parties should also start preparing their parties for 2019 elections by strengthening their structures at the grassroots and not wait for the election year,\u201d Ansah said.<\/p>\n
According to the draft calendar, the elections will be launched in January next year. In the same month, the electoral body will launch the Civic Education Taskforce. In February, Mec is expected to invite local and international observers to the electoral process.<\/p>\n
A 10-phase voter registration process is expected to start on April 5, 2018 and end in September the same year. Accreditation of local and international observers is expected to be done in October 2018.<\/p>\n
Some of the activities expected to take place between November and December 2018 are distribution of bulk polling materials to regional warehouses, training of multiparty liaison committees in conflict management, inspection of interim voters\u2019 register (to be done in four phases) and submission of party monitors to Mec for polling processes.<\/p>\n
Presentation of nomination papers is expected to be done between January 28, 2019 and February 1 the same year. Names of nominated candidates are expected to be gazetted on March 20, 2019. On the same day, the official campaign is expected to start.<\/p>\n
Mec has also included presidential debates in its draft calendar with the first debate slated for Mzuzu in February 2019 followed by another one in Lilongwe the following month. The last one will be held in Blantyre in April 2019.<\/p>\n
According to the calendar, after the elections are held on May 21, 2019, determination and announcement of presidential elections results will be done on May 29.<\/p>\n
Determination and announcement of results of parliamentary elections and determinations and announcement of results of local government elections are expected to be done on June 4 and 11, respectively.<\/p>\n
Some preparations for the elections already started this year with preliminary meetings with political parties and the media. There have also been meetings on constituency and wards demarcation. The media code of conduct is expected to be launched in June this year.<\/p>\n
In a related development, Mec has announced that it will hold a re-run in Lilongwe City South East Constituency, and a by-election in Lilongwe Msozi North Constituency on June 6, 2017. On the same day, by-elections will also be held in Mayani North Ward in Dedza North Constituency and Mtsiriza Ward in Lilongwe City West Constituency<\/p>\n
\u201cThe contests in all the four by-elections areas will be open to old and new candidates. Regarding registration, the Commission will only register first time voters and no transfers will be accepted,\u201d reads a statement from Acting Chief Elections Officer, Thandie Nkovole.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Malawi Electoral Commission (Mec) has released a draft calendar for 2019 presidential, parliamentary and local government elections. Speaking during the first National Elections Consultative Forum (Necof) meeting in Lilongwe yesterday, Mec Chairperson, Jane Ansah, said the Commission is geared to deliver free, fair, transparent, credible, cost-effective and inclusive elections in 2019. \u201cBut to achieve […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":43905,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43903"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43903\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43906,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43903\/revisions\/43906"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}