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By Raphael Tenthani
BBC, Malawi
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![President Bakili Muluzi]()
Voters are due to elect a successor
to President Muluzi
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A High Court in Malawi has ordered the government to postpone elections,
which had been set for next Tuesday.
The judge said
the elections must now be held before 25 May.
A seven-party
opposition coalition had argued that the poll would not be free or fair
because of "serious anomalies" in the new electoral roll.
Lawyer Charles
Mhango said up to one million voters had been
excluded from the revised electoral roll and there had not been time to scrutinise it.
'Too costly'
Under the
constitution, voters should have 21 days to review the roll, which was
published last Friday.
He also said
there were two rolls in circulation, which could lead to vote-rigging.
The number of
eligible voters was recently reduced from 6.6 million, to 5.7 million.
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![]() A convenient blackout of three minutes is adequate
time for the convenient switching of ballot boxes ![]() ![]()
Malawi church
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President Bakili Muluzi of the United
Democratic Front is not standing after serving two five-year terms.
Before the
ruling, the Malawi Electoral Commission said it could not delay the
elections.
"Any
postponement would be extremely costly and the constitution requires that 18
May be the election date," spokesman Fegus Lipenga said.
Mr Lipenga said the
number of registered voters had dropped because some people had registered
twice and others had died.
'Fictitious'
One of Malawi's
churches was among those who called for the elections to be postponed until
June.
"Our
anxiety is centred on the inaction on the part of
the Electoral Commission to address the serious offence of the ruling party
in recording voter registration certificates which runs to counter the
principle of a secret ballot," said a statement from the Church
of Central Africa Presbyterian's Blantyre Synod
Church and Society Programme.
"We
regard this tactic as intimidation of the highest order, because it is
deliberately being used to serve as gauge to know who will vote for the
ruling party or otherwise."
The church
also wants the state-run Malawi Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) to refrain
from broadcasting "fictitious" election news and results of fake
opinion polls aimed at confusing voters.
It asked for
assurances from electricity and communication providers that that their
services would not be interrupted while polling stations were open.
"We know
that a convenient blackout of three minutes is adequate time for the
convenient switching of ballot boxes," the statement said.
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