By Eric Msikiti:<\/p>\n
The number of aspiring presidential candidates for the May 21 Tripartite Elections has risen to 13, Malawi Electoral Commission (Mec) says.<\/p>\n
The latest to collect nomination forms are United Democratic Front candidate Atupele Muluzi, former vice president who is also leader of Tikonze People\u2019s Movement Cassim Chilumpha, Democratic People\u2019s Congress\u2019 Chris Daza, Chimbuna Belekiah of United Independence Party and Ras Chikomeni David Chirwa who will contest on an independent ticket.<\/p>\n
These have joined President Peter Mutharika, Democratic Progressive Party torch-bearer, Malawi Congress Party\u2019s Lazarus Chakwera, People\u2019s Party\u2019s Joyce Banda, Saulos Chilima of UTM, Peter Kuwani of Mbakuwaku Movement for Development, and independents Henry Mbewe, Smart Swira and Baxter Natulu.<\/p>\n
In an earlier interview, Mec Director of Media and Public Relations, Sangwani Mwafulirwa, said aspirants need to fulfill all requirements before they are put on the ballot.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt should be stated that just collecting a nomination paper does not make one a candidate. They need to fill it and submit back to the commission between February 4 and 8. Presidential candidates will submit their nomination paper to the Commission at the Comesa Hall in Blantyre while parliamentary and Local Government candidates will submit their nomination papers to their constituency returning officers to be stationed in the constituency,\u201d<\/em> Mwafulirwa said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Mec says, in a statement released Wednesday, that all candidates who will represent political parties are collecting the nomination forms through respective partys secretaries-general, while independents are receiving through Mec\u2019s Chief Elections Officer Sam Alfandika.<\/p>\n
Independent candidates for parliamentary and local government elections are collecting nomination papers from district commissioners or chief executive officers of councils.<\/p>\n
Mec further says submission of nomination papers will be from February 4 to 8.<\/p>\n
\u201cParliamentary and Local Government elections candidates will submit their nomination papers to their respective constituency returning officers while presidential candidates will submit their nomination papers to the Malawi Electoral Commission at the Chichiri International Conference Centre (Comesa) Hall,\u201d reads a statement signed by Alfandika.<\/p>\n
So far, the number of potential candidates has exceeded that of the previous election when 12 candidates contested.<\/p>\n
Of those who have already collected nomination forms, Mutharika, Chakwera, Banda and Muluzi are the only ones who also contested in 2014.<\/p>\n
Statistics and analysis show that most of those aspiring for the presidency do that out of show and only confuse voters as they always perform dismally.<\/p>\n
For example in 2014, the difference between the top four candidates was 697, 864 votes. The bottom eight candidates amassed a combined total of 94, 844 votes while the number four candidate, Atupele Muluzi alone got 717, 224 votes.<\/p>\n
The difference between the winner and the last candidate was 1, 896, 945 with Mutharika getting, 1,904, 399 votes against Chipani cha Pfuko\u2019s Davis Katsonga who got 7,454 votes.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Some of the registered political parties in Malawi<\/p>\n
African Nyasaland Party<\/p>\n
Alliance for democracy (Aford)<\/p>\n
Christian Democratic Party<\/p>\n
Congress for National Unity<\/p>\n
Congress of Democrats (Code)<\/p>\n
Democratic People\u2019s Congress (Depeco)<\/p>\n
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)<\/p>\n
Freedom Party<\/p>\n
Labour Party<\/p>\n
Leadership with Compassion (LCP)<\/p>\n
Malavi People\u2019s Party<\/p>\n
Malawi Congress Party (MCP)<\/p>\n
Malawi Democratic Union<\/p>\n
Malawi Forum for Unity and Development (Mafunde)<\/p>\n
Malawi Freedom Party<\/p>\n
Malawi National Democratic Party<\/p>\n
Mtendere Ufulu Party<\/p>\n
National Patriotic Front<\/p>\n
National Salvation Front<\/p>\n
National Solidarity Movement<\/p>\n
National Unity Party<\/p>\n
New Congress for Democracy<\/p>\n
New Dawan for Africa Party<\/p>\n
New Republican Party<\/p>\n
New Vision Democracy Party (NVDP)<\/p>\n
Nthanda Congress Party (NCP)<\/p>\n
Pamodzi Freedom Party<\/p>\n
People\u2019s Democratic Party<\/p>\n
People\u2019s Party (PP)<\/p>\n
People\u2019s Popular Front<\/p>\n
People\u2019s Transformation Party<\/p>\n
Rejoice Kingdom Party<\/p>\n
Sapitwa National Democratic Party<\/p>\n
The Congress for the Second Republic of Malawi<\/p>\n
The Forum Party<\/p>\n
The Malawi Democratic Party<\/p>\n
The New Rainbow Coalition Party (NARC)<\/p>\n
The Republican Party<\/p>\n
Umodzi Party<\/p>\n
United Democratic Front (UDF)<\/p>\n
United Democratic Party (UDP)<\/p>\n
United Front for Multi-party Democracy<\/p>\n
UTM<\/p>\n
United Transformation Party<\/p>\n
NOTE: The list is not exhaustive while some of the parties are inactive<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Eric Msikiti: The number of aspiring presidential candidates for the May 21 Tripartite Elections has risen to 13, Malawi Electoral Commission (Mec) says. The latest to collect nomination forms are United Democratic Front candidate Atupele Muluzi, former vice president who is also leader of Tikonze People\u2019s Movement Cassim Chilumpha, Democratic People\u2019s Congress\u2019 Chris Daza, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":46924,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73058","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\/73058","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=73058"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73058\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73060,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73058\/revisions\/73060"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}