Network glitches yesterday marred the Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) results management system dry run as data transmission either delayed or failed between district, constituency and national tally centres.
MEC conducted the simulation between 2pm and 4pm to test the effectiveness and efficiency of the system ahead of the September 16 2025 General Election.
The electoral commission conducted the exercise in 73 constituency tally centres in eight councils, namely Nkhata Bay, Dedza, Balaka, Neno, M’Mbelwa, Lilongwe District, Chikwawa, and Blantyre City.
However, tests at centres such as Chiuzira Teacher Development Centre (TDC) in Lilongwe Central
Constituency were plagued by delays.
MEC officers were seen struggling to log into the system, with data entry and scanning functions repeatedly getting interrupted by poor connectivity.
The network instability lasted over an hour, prompting officials to constantly contact their technical team to resolve the glitches and get the simulation back on track.
It took two hours for the officials at Chiuzira TDC to get a breakthrough and send the test results to the national tally centre at Bingu International Convention Centre (Bicc). They had to use a mobile phone network as a backup after the primary system failed to establish a connection.
The situation made some political party representatives to express concern that the
challenges, if unresolved, could undermine the credibility of the results process.
In an interview, governing Malawi Congress Party (MCP) member Maxwell Chikho noted that network reliability and staff punctuality remain challenges.
He said: “The system is better since it will reduce the incidences
of voting twice or more. But I ask MEC officials to come on time during the polling day to make sure voting starts early, as well. I also urge MEC to make sure Internet hitches are not experienced on the day.”
In Blantyre City, the exercise was also marred by technical glitches that saw
some constituency tally centres completely fail to transmit results to the district tally centre.
At Mbayani TDC Constituency Tally Centre, MEC staff managed to transmit presidential results only but failed to transmit parliamentary and local government election results.
The election management devices (EMDs) delayed for about an hour to transmit the results from Bangwe and Limbe TDCs constituency tally centres.
During a visit to the Blantyre City main tally centre at Blantyre Secondary School, by 5.30pm, out of the 1 671 polling stations from 10 constituencies, results for about 1610 polling stations were still pending.
MEC commissioner Emmanuel Fabiano, who was at the scene, acknowledged the glitches, but expressed optimism that the challenges will be addressed before polling day on September 16 2025.
results at Blantyre Secondary School. | Francis Chamasowa
He said: “I would like to believe that, that is a technical issue. If the transmission [problem] is because of the network, then the network has to be taken care of. I don’t think it is equipment. I am sure people at the constituency tally centres will explain their situations to ICT [information, communication and technology] authorities to address the issues.”
University of Malawi political analyst Associate Professor Boniface Dulani, who also visited the Blantyre City main tally centre, observed that if the network glitches will be addressed, the system will help to speed up the vote counting process.
He said MEC should treat the network issue as a matter of urgency.
Said Dulani: “I just hope that they [MEC] have a system that will help to resolve those challenges because even here at BSS at the middle of the town, it was taking quite long for the system to load up.
“So we want to get to the system where we should be able to get to know the results at least within 24 hours.”
At the national tally centre at Bicc in Lilongwe, MEC commissioner Limbikani Kamlongera insisted that the integrity of results transmission process for the election will be safeguarded through both technology and openness.
She stressed that beyond technology, transparency is the strongest safeguard, with party monitors, accredited observers and the media allowed to follow the process closely.
“The system you are seeing today incorporates security features that protect data at every stage of transmission. Results will be encrypted. Access will be limited to authorised personnel only. Audit trails will be maintained so that every action can be traced and accounted for,” said Kamlongera.
Reacting to concerns that a 32-minute delay in results transmission pointed to weakness, she attributed the issue to improper recording on the ground.
“Our system is recording each and every entry in real time, and the entries that were showcased here as an example did not indicate any delays at all,” said Kamlongera.
European Union Election Observation Mission (EU-EOM) deputy chief observer Anne Marlborough welcomed MEC’s decision to open up the process to scrutiny.
She said: “We have been very interested to see that MEC has conducted the event and that they have opened it to political parties and observers like ourselves. We also have our observers at several of the other dry run centres around the country, so we’re trying to observe it at both the national and the local level.”
But Marlborough stressed that it was too early to make any conclusions.
Despite MEC’s assurances, opposition voices raised concerns.
People’s Party director of legal affairs Aaron Kisebe expressed reservations over the presence of Smartmatic technicians, whom MEC insisted were only there to provide support if needed but did not intervene as the system run smoothly.
Main opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) representative Macford Somanje, whose nomination to MEC as DPP representative was rejected, was also unconvinced, pointing to the 32-minute transmission delay he observed during the simulation.
However, at Malembo TDC in Lilongwe Chilobwe Constituency the exercise went on well.
The MEC team found a handful of people waiting for them and set up their equipment after which they demonstrated how it is going to work.
Past elections have been shadowed by allegations of tampering and manipulation during results transmission.
