On the 21st of May, Malawians headed to their various polling booths to elect a president, National Assembly members and Local Government Councillors. Polls opened at 6 am for an election which was the “first since a new law forced parties to declare large donations and banned the once-common practice by candidates of giving cash handouts,” as reported by Al-Jazeera.
President Mutharika faced a stiff challenge from his deputy, Chilima and the Malawi Congress Party’s Lazarus Chakwera and before the polls, his campaign hinged on his progress in reducing inflation in the country and building on this success. However, several negative indices, including poor access to electricity, rampant food shortages and growing external debt, have plagued Mutharika’s tenure, dampening his chances for success.
The polls officially closed at 6 pm on the 21st of May and counting is currently underway, with early figures pointing to a Mutharika win. But, as in most elections observed on the continent this year, the opposition is currently calling the government out for trying to rig the elections.
Rigging Allegations
Malawi’s Electoral Commission (MEC) Chief, Dr. Jane Ansah called upon stakeholders, including political parties, to refrain from announcing premature results, pledging that the commission would start official declaration of results as soon as 20% of votes cast had been counted.
According to Africa News, “Malawi’s opposition leader Lazarus Chakwera on Wednesday warned against attempts to rig the country’s election, claiming he was clearly leading in results so far tallied. Early official results showed President Peter Mutharika and Chakwera were equal on about 37 percent of the vote with about one-third of polling centres counted after Tuesday’s election. “So far the message is clear, we know that we have a tremendous lead,” he told a news conference at his house in Blantyre.” He continued by saying: “Those in power, I know you, you’re trying to tamper with elections.”
However, more recent results put President Mutharika clearly in the lead.
Results So Far
Update by TSA: With 75% of all votes counted, this is how the tally currently stands (13:00):
- Peter Mutharika (DPP) – 40.49%
- Lazarus Chakwera (MCP) – 35.44%
- Saulos Chilima (UTM) – 18.35%
The Malawi Electoral Commission has taken to twitter to keep citizens and observers abreast of the vote tally as they become available.
Latest Presidential Results at 75.81% #MalawiElections2019 #MalawiDecides2019 pic.twitter.com/t3XzlFuMdO— Malawi Government (@MalawiGovt) May 23, 2019
Breakdown of announced results per region per district #MalawiElections2019 #MalawiDecides2019 pic.twitter.com/GC6zEPGct4— Malawi Government (@MalawiGovt) May 23, 2019
With more than three-quarters of the vote counted, the commission announced that it will make an announcement at 9 pm tonight and many believe this will be the official results from the election.
