By Pemphero Malimba:
National Initiative for Civic Education (Nice) Public Trust has described resource constraints, misinformation and poor delivery among political leaders as some of the factors that have affected efforts to encourage people to take part in electoral processes.
It warns that this could have a negative bearing on the September 16 Local Government, Parliamentary and Presidential Elections.
Nice Trust Executive Director Gray Kalindekafe said this while reacting to assertions that electoral processes have, so far, been affected by inadequate civic voter education efforts.
Public Affairs Committee (Pac) spokesperson Bishop Clilford Matonga made the latest comment on Tuesday when he described as inadequate civic education efforts.
He said this was one of the factors that culminated in low turnout during the first phase of the supplementary voter registration exercise.
The Malawi Electoral Commission (Mec) conducted the exercise in some parts of the country from Tuesday to Wednesday this week.
The exercise saw only a few Malawians registering at their nearest centres.
Kalindekafe said civic education efforts were affected by financial constraints among accredited civil society organisations (CSOs).
“Mec accredited 116 institutions to conduct civic and voter education for the 2025 general elections. Not many of the accredited institutions have resources to conduct any meaningful civic and voter education intervention,” Kalindekafe said.
He added that language used by politicians also led to many Malawians shunning electoral processes.
“Political parties, as primary beneficiaries of elections, have spread negativity through negative messaging. A lot of misinformation on the EMDs [election management devices], popularly called “Smartmatic” machines, has resulted in many eligible Malawians shunning voter registration, in some cases until the end of the designated phases,” he said.
He also noted that poor output from duty-bearers was disenfranchising the citizenry.
“There is general political disillusionment with poor delivery by elected leaders. In other words, Malawians are frustrated by the numerous unfulfilled promises from the previous electoral campaign. This frustration is deeply rooted, to the extent that no matter how much civic education is conducted, some people cannot be moved, hence some of the problems that are negatively affecting people’s participation in the electoral process,” he said.
He, therefore, challenged electoral stakeholders to enhance efforts aimed at encouraging Malawians to participate in the electoral processes.
“All electoral stakeholders must intensify community outreach programmes using all available means. It is something that we are already doing but needs to be enhanced to include other community leaders in the traditional, faith and political circles.
“It is also expected that since political parties are the major beneficiaries of the electoral process, we continue to engage them so that they also take an active role in sensitising their fo
