Opposition parties boycott voter registration

The opposition Malawi Congress Party (MCP) and the Alliance for Democracy (AFORD) have called on potential voters not to register for the forthcoming local government elections allegedly because the ruling United Democratic Front (UDF) had connived with the Electoral Commission to rig the polls, news reports said on Wednesday. The registration of voters for the 21 November elections started on Monday throughout Malawi. However MCP’s publicity secretary, James Chimera, was quoted as saying that the opposition was against the registration exercise because the Electoral Commission had not given them enough time to mobilise their machinery to monitor the exercise. He said a letter from the commission last Saturday only informed the MCP the registration would begin two days later on 28 August. “How could we mobilise our monitors for the over 5,000 registration centres at such a short notice?”