Malawi Electoral Commission Chairperson Dr. Jane Ansah has suggested that electoral laws should be reviewed in order to provide an equal opportunity to Malawians to contest in presidential elections.

This follows the rejection of three presidential nomination papers for independent candidates in the May 21, 2019 elections due to among others, failure to pay the K2 million nomination fee.

Both the independent candidates whose nomination forms were deferred Ras David Chikomeni Chirwa, Mr Smart Swira and Mr Damiano Ganiza said they did not manage to pay the K2 million nomination fee after failing to mobilize the funds.

But reacting to the development Ansah said the commission was just applying the current electoral laws.

She however suggested that perhaps in future the electoral laws should be revised so that underprivileged Malawians can also contest in presidential elections.

The three independent presidential candidates also failed to collect ten signatures in each of the 28 districts as well as providing their voter records.

On this, Ansah said there is need to establish proper procedures to prevent such kind of scenarios.

A total of 24 presidential candidates collected nomination papers but only ten were submitted during the just ended presentation of presidential nomination papers.