Police Recovers MEC Materials

Police has recovered materials of Malawi Electoral Commission MEC and National Registration Bureau NRB from a man, Manase Jossam.

According to MEC chief elections Officer Sam Alfandika, Jossam did not stop at Kanengo Road block in Lilongwe therefore police officers followed and caught him in Area 25.

Alufandika says after searching in his car they found bulk of transparent packets which he could not explain the purpose.

The police officers took him to his house in the same Area where upon searching they found two NRB backpacks containing 20 monitor IDs, two marked empty envelops, two voter registration application book tracking forms, two handbooks for security forces, two handbooks for monitors, two registration booths as well as completed accreditation forms of party and local monitors.

Jossam told Kanengo police that he bought the backpacks in Nkhota-kota for personal use and was not aware of their contents until that time the officers searched him.

The police are further interrogating him to establish how he got the items and the intention of keeping them.

On its part MEC is also doing internal investigations using the information from some of the documents to establish the staff that might have used the backpacks during voter registration period.

However, Alufandika says no voting materials were found among the recovered items.

He said these are non sensitive materials that cannot be used to obtain voter registration or access polling by fraud.

Malawi electoral commission will update the nation on progress made by the police in their investigations and actions that will be taken.