The Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) has announced that 7,200,905 people have registered as voters for the 2025 general elections.
According to a public notice signed by Chief Elections Officer Andrew Mpes, out of this number, 3,087,563 are male and 4,113,342 are female representing 42.9 percent and 57.1 percent and of the total number of registered voters, respectively.
“In comparison with the projected total number of people in the Councils that would be aged 18 years and above by 16th September 2025, which according to the National Statistical Office (NSO) is 10,957,490 (5,146,679 male and 5,810,811 female), the number of registered voters represents 65.7 percent of the projected population. Disaggregated by gender, 60 percent of the projected male population has registered while 70.8 percent of the projected female population have registered.
The voter registration exercise was planned for implementation in three phases, and this covered the period from 21 October 2024 to 11th December 2024.
“To comply with the order of the High Court in the case of George Chipwaila and others vs MEC and the Attorney General (NRB) of 25 October 2024, which required that the National Registration Bureau (NRB) should put in place mechanisms that would enable all eligible Malawians to register as citizens, so that they would in turn register as voters with the Malawi Electoral Commission, the Commission conducted Supplementary Voter Registration (SVR) in all Councils. The Supplementary Voter Registration was intended to provide an opportunity for the following to register:
“Eligible Malawians that were unable to register with the NRB when they presented themselves at the voter registration centres under Phase 1 of the voter registration process, because the NRB had not yet deployed its civil registration teams to the voter registration centres to register those without national IDs. Thus, in Phase 1 Councils, the SVR targeted only those persons that would have registered with the NRB from 21” October 2024, the date voter registration commenced, up to 4th January 2025, the last date for a special civil registration exercise conducted by the NRB in all fourteen (14) Phase 1 Councils
“Eligible Malawians that under Phases 2 and 3 of voter registration, presented themselves at voter registration centres and applied for civil registration with the NRB. However, these were not issued with their unique National ID numbers by the close of the voter registration, and consequently they were not able to register as voters.
“The SVR had a target of a maximum of 271,784 people. This figure represented the number of people that would be 18 years old and above by 16th September 2025, that had been registered with the National Registration Bureau between 21 October 2024 and 4th January 2025 and had been issued with unique identifiers (National Identity Numbers),” he said
