In preparation for the 2025 Tripartite polls, 288 out of the 6500 election management devices procured by the Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) have arrived in the country through Kamuzu International Airport.
According to Commissioner Emmanuel Fabiano, this is the first consignment of the devices as the rest of the equipment is being manufactured.
The election management devices EMDs procured by MEC are going to be used for registration of voters which will commence in September this year together with the nomination of candidates among some of the activities being planned on the electoral calendar.
Dr. Fabiano said when registering people, the Commission keeps records which will be transmitted to computers and other storage systems much more easily making processing of the data much faster with little mistakes made.
He explained that at the end of the day, a voter’s register will be produced and unlike in previous polls, it will not be done manually but use electronic equipment.
“The first batch that we have received of 288 is meant to be used for the initial training because we are going to train many people and the people that are going to be trained altogether is more than 15, 000 and that training is going to be done in the month of June.
“We cannot wait for every piece of equipment to come before the training starts; the training has to start and make sure that everybody who is supposed to be trained is trained. So within the month of June, we expect that we’ll have received all the equipment that we expect and within the month of June we’ll have trained most of the people especially the trainers.
“We’ll train the first batch who are going to train the other people because we’d like to make sure that all the training is completed and we’re ready to use the equipment within the month of July; two months before we start registering the voters everything should be ready”
Although representatives from all the registered political parties were invited, only DPP UTM and Prophet Mbewe’s Liberation for economic freedom party showed up and Commissioner Fabiano stressed that the electoral body wants to be as transparent as possible.
‘We’re saying that the first consignment of the equipment has come today. We have told the parties, we’ve told you, you have come and every time we receive the equipment we’ll let you know.
“When we want to train the people, we’ll tell you we’re training the people so that everything that we do as MEC is known by all the stakeholders so that if they have got any doubts; they don’t have to ask us for explanations they should be able to see from the way we are giving them information that we’re doing everything as transparently as we possibly can.”
