7m Malawians register for 2025 general elections

Preliminary cumulative figures of Malawians who registered ahead of the September 2025 general elections show more than seven million prospective voters.

This is slightly above the 6.8 million voters registered for the 2019 elections, according to data released by the Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) on Wednesday.

A total of 10,957,490 people were expected to register as projected by the country’s statistical office.

But at the close of the third and last phase of the registration exercises on Dec. 11, a total of 7,162,217 voters had registered. This represents 65 per cent of the expected figure.

MEC, however, noted that the figures for the three phases of the voter registration exercises were preliminary.  It said there might be slight changes upon “cleaning of the data”.

Andrew Mpesi, MEC’s Chief Elections Officer, said the commission would publicise the final figures once any “impurities” such as duplicate registration are cleared.

The MEC conducted the voter registration exercises in three phases from November.

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It divided the country’s district councils into groupings of 14 councils apiece for Phases I and II, and eight councils for Phase III.

According to the National Statistical Office of Malawi, the country’s current population is estimated at 21.7 million. The youth account for over 50 per cent.

Malawi will conduct tripartite elections on Sept. 16, 2025, to elect the president, members of parliament and local government representatives.

The southeastern African country has at least 20 registered political parties. Three of the parties are the key contenders.

They are the ruling Malawi Congress Party, the main opposition Democratic Progressive Party and the United Transformation Movement.

Although, there is a likelihood of political alliances with other smaller parties. (Xinhua)