Voices lost at the ballot box in Malawi

By Imam Wali

On Septem­ber 16, 2025, Jay­ina Mussa, 64, joined 7,200,905 registered Malawian voters in a demo­cratic exer­cise that proved daunt­ing. 

At Kany­enda Primary School, Senior Chief Kasumbu in Dedza, Mussa struggled to cast her vote, her fin­gers trem­bling as she tried to tick the bal­lot.

“As I tried to place a simple tick next to my chosen can­did­ate, the ink bled across the lines. For fear of embar­rass­ing myself, I did not approach the Malawi Elect­oral Com­mis­sion (MEC) offi­cial for guid­ance, so my bal­lot was com­prom­ised,” Mussa says. 

She sees her­self as a product of a time when par­ents believed send­ing a girl to school was a waste of money and resources.

“They believed a woman’s place was in the kit­chen,” she says.

Today, she is one of five mil­lion Malawians, 31 per­cent of the pop­u­la­tion, trapped in silence by illit­er­acy.

Women are par­tic­u­larly affected, with a 34.1 per­cent illit­er­acy rate com­pared with 28.4 per­cent of men.

These fig­ures hinder pro­gress towards Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment Goal 4, which calls for qual­ity edu­ca­tion, and Malawi 2063, the coun­try’s long-term devel­op­ment agenda, which pri­or­it­ises human cap­ital as the engine for inclus­ive wealth cre­ation.

Mussa’s dif­fi­culty is not an isol­ated incid­ent but part of a national pat­tern.

MEC repor­ted a stag­ger­ing 155,225 null and void bal­lots in the 2025 gen­eral elec­tion, 2.8 per­cent of total votes cast.

This mar­gin was large enough to influ­ence local res­ults or swing a national man­date.

In Lilongwe Mtan­dire – Mts­ir­iza Con­stitu­ency, for example, the win­ner beat the run­ner-up by just five votes while 288 bal­lots were voided.

Arnold Mas­ina, aged 40, from Senior Chief Kaphuka in Dedza, faced a sim­ilar ordeal. He left the polls unsure whether his vote had coun­ted. Poverty had denied him school­ing and now illit­er­acy stole his influ­ence.

While Mussa and Mas­ina remain hes­it­ant to return to a classroom at their age, Anita Mak­ungwa from Mch­inji decided she would no longer be embar­rassed.

After strug­gling in the 2019 and 2020 elec­tions, she enrolled in an Adult Learn­ing and Edu­ca­tion (ALE) pro­gramme.

“There, I learned to read and write. In last year’s elec­tions I voted con­fid­ently. I have also acquired tail­or­ing skills,” Mak­ungwa says.

MEC Dir­ector of Media and Pub­lic Rela­tions, Sang­wani Mwafu­lirwa, says the com­mis­sion is pre­par­ing for future elec­tions, includ­ing the 2030 gen­eral elec­tion, and plans to engage in a struc­tured review pro­cess where void votes will be examined sys­tem­at­ic­ally.

“This will include con­sid­er­ing whether fur­ther research is needed to under­stand voter beha­viour and bal­lot-mark­ing chal­lenges, strength­en­ing voter edu­ca­tion and civic aware­ness using lan­guages that res­on­ate with dif­fer­ent seg­ments of soci­ety,” Mwafu­lirwa says.

He warns against over­sim­pli­fy­ing why votes are dis­qual­i­fied, insist­ing that while illit­er­acy may be a factor, it can­not be assumed to be the sole or dom­in­ant cause without formal research.

The MEC spokes­per­son fur­ther states that other con­trib­ut­ing factors may include mis­un­der­stand­ing bal­lot instruc­tions, delib­er­ate protest vot­ing and anxi­ety or pres­sure in the polling envir­on­ment.

“Oth­ers could be mis­takes arising from unfa­mil­iar bal­lot lay­outs. In some cases, voters may inten­tion­ally spoil their bal­lots as a form of protest,” he adds.

Linda Moyo, spokes­per­son for the Min­istry of Gender, says the min­istry plans to review the National Adult Lit­er­acy and Edu­ca­tion Policy and its imple­ment­a­tion strategy between 2026 and 2027 to strengthen deliv­ery and improve effi­ciency'

“We aim to estab­lish com­munity learn­ing centres with per­man­ent struc­tures that offer lit­er­acy and com­ple­ment­ary skills,” Moyo says.

Hor­ace Kas­udze, Pro­grammes Officer for the Cath­olic Com­mis­sion for Justice and Peace in Dedza, notes that illit­er­acy remains a sig­ni­fic­ant chal­lenge.

“Lim­ited resources affect our aware­ness cam­paigns. Politi­cians should also be edu­cat­ing cit­izens on how to vote cor­rectly but they often focus solely on cam­paigns,” Kas­udze says.

Des­pite the National Adult Lit­er­acy and Edu­ca­tion Policy and a stra­tegic plan requir­ing K63.15 bil­lion to reach 5.1 mil­lion people, the sec­tor his­tor­ic­ally rece