Malawi’s President Loses To Opposition Leader In Election Re-run

Malawi’s electoral body has declared the opposition leader, Lazarus Chakwera as the winner of the presidential elections which went for a rerun after the constitutional court declared the vote invalid.

The court sitting in the capital Lilongwe, declared that the May 2019 election was rigged in favour of the incumbent President Peter Mutharika of the Democratic Progressive Party.

The court was presented with concrete evidence of massive tempering of votes with some results been altered with correction pens.

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The chairperson of the electoral body subsequently declared the president winner of the polls on 27th May 2019 and sworn in for a five-year term the very next day.

In early February, Malawi’s constitutional court annulled 79 year old President Mutharika’s victory in the May 2019 election and ordered a fresh elections within 150 days which left the country bitterly divided in the run-up to this week’s election.

Lazarus Chakwera of the Malawi Congress Party then joined forces with the president’s deputy, Saulos Chilima of the United Transformation Movement, who had then fallen out with his boss.

Official results released by the electoral commission revealed that the 65 year old pastor defeated incumbent Peter Mutharika with 58.57% of the vote in Tuesday’s poll.

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Peter Mutharika led the Justice, Foreign Affairs, Education and Science ministries at different times during his elder brother, Bingu wa Mutharika’s presidency.

He later emerged winner in the 2014 elections against Joyce Banda who was serving as the president following the death of the elder Mutharika in office in 2012.

This is the second African nation to annul a presidential election after the opposition’s demand over irregularities paving way for a fresh one after a court’s order.

Raila Odinga successfully challenged President Uhuru Kenyatta’s re-election in 2017. The incumbent president went ahead to win the elections a month later.

SOURCE: AfricaCelebrities.com