Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) Chairperson Justice Anabel Mtalimanja has firmly defended the country’s electoral process, stating that despite persistent noise from sections of civil society and pseudo-activist groups, no political party has officially raised any formal complaint regarding the integrity or transparency of the ongoing electoral preparations.
Speaking on Wednesday at a high-level engagement meeting with media executives at Sunbird Capital Hotel in Lilongwe, the MEC Chairperson dismissed allegations of bias and secrecy surrounding the use of the Electronic Data Management (EDM) system and the involvement of the international technology firm Smartmatic in managing the 2025 electoral process.
“Let me make it clear: no political party has formally lodged any concern with the commission, not even on Smartmatic or EDMs,” said Justice Mtalimanja.
She said the Commission had consistently invited political parties to participate in all phases of the electoral process and had ensured transparency by operating through the Centre for Multiparty Democracy (CMD), a platform that includes all registered political parties and was previously chaired by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and now by the People’s Party (PP).
“Every step of this process has been inclusive. The hiring of Smartmatic involved all parties through CMD. Demonstrations were conducted in-country with every major party present. None raised any objections then,” she emphasized.
The Chairperson also questioned the motives behind the sudden surge of electoral skepticism from political activists who appear to be coordinating with opposition elements, saying the facts do not support the outcry.
Justice Mtalimanja also revealed that despite MEC opening up the voters’ roll for public inspection, an opportunity to verify and raise issues such as missing names, no political party seized the opportunity to lodge any formal grievance or dispute.
“We opened the register for verification and asked political stakeholders to validate it. As of 31st May when the verification process closed, no political party has come up with any other issues concerning the alleged cases of more than a million voters missing or any other issue,” she said.
Touching on the highly publicized calls for an independent audit of the electoral system, the MEC Chairperson clarified that while the current electoral law does not mandate such an audit, MEC was flexible enough to accommodate the request.
“We asked the five political parties that called for the audit to submit a clear scope of the audit and the terms of reference. Up to now, nothing has come back. As MEC our responsibility is not only to these five political parties but to all more than 25 registered parties as well as to all Malawians,” she noted.
Justice Mtalimanja outlined the process that will be used for the September 16 elections, revealing that the majority of the process, from voting to counting, will be manual.
“Voting will be done using ballot papers and boxes, results will be counted and tabulated at the polling stations manually. At the constituency level, we will use a hybrid approach, results will be tallied manually and then entered into the EDM system for electronic transmission along with the physical documents,” she said.
She emphasized that no results will be announced until both physical and electronic tallies match and are verified by party representatives.
“There is no precedence being given to either method. Both systems will complement each other. And all political party agents and the media will verify and witness before any transmission happens,” she insisted.
The MEC Chairperson’s address comes amid rising rhetoric from some civil society actors and unregistered groups that have taken to the streets accusing the Commission of preparing to rig elections. But her detailed explanation appears to paint a different picture—one of transparency, invitation to dialogue, and ignored opportunities by those crying foul.
The meeting ended with a challenge to the media to help the public separate facts from coordinated disinformation ahead of one of Malawi’s most hotly contested general elections in recent history.
