With just days to the Malawi's September 16 polls, some political experts have forecast growing voter apathy as 116 accredited civil society organisations (CSOs) continue facing a funding gap for voter and civic education.

One of the CSOs, Phalombe Youth Arms Organization (PYAO) through its executive director, Vincent Thom confirmed that no donor has committed any funding for the exercise, but has indicated that they are integrating voter messaging including using social media.

"Currently, I can assure that we are still facing challenges in accessing funding to amplify our civil education. Obviously, some of the voters will miss critical information like what happened during the registration process," Thom said.

In March this year, the accredited CSOs expressed worry that they lacked at least K30 billion to carry out the exercise, and Zodiak has established that this remains the situation.

Political analyst, Vincent Rangel said with no financial support and time running out, the fate of voter engagement in the 2025 polls hangs in the balance including for the persons with disabilities.

"Misinformation and disinformation would likely fill the vacuum left by a lack of accurate, non-partisan voter information including the misunderstanding of 50+1 voting system. In the event that there will be no presidential winner in the first elections, there would be a big problems because people in the villages would not know the reason to vote in the second round," he said.

Meanwhile, another analyst Enerst Thindwa, has blamed the CSOs for lacking alternative funding sources for the exercise amidst the donor fatigue.

He said," It's not on that 30 years of multiparty democracy we still have the CSOs that entirely depend on donor funding. They needed to create strategies for sustainability."

The Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) is not mandated to provide funding to the accredited CSOs, except the accreditation.

Past election data shows a troubling trend of voter disengagement as over 2.4 million registered voters did not turn up in 2019, and nearly 1.8 million skipped the 2020 fresh presidential elections.