Malawi Opposition Candidate Leads Presidential Vote Rerun

The leader of Malawi’s main opposition party, Lazarus Chakwera, looks poised to replace Peter Mutharika as the country’s president, following an historic rerun of the country’s 2019 election.

Unofficial polling results posted online show Mr Chakwera of the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) leading with 60.65% of the vote, while President Mutharika of the DPP is in second place with 38.61% and a third contender, Peter Kuwani, trails at just 1.6%. 

However, the Malawi Electoral Commission has warned against trusting these unofficial results. It said it had only received results from eight out of the 5,008 polling centres by Wednesday. The results are being manually taken to the national tally centre in the southern commercial hub of Blantyre. The Commission has about a week to announce the official results.

The fiercely contested election was held after Malawi’s constitutional court annulled President Mutharika’s narrow victory in May last year.

The court upheld claims from opposition candidates of widespread ballot fraud, including the use of Tippex correctional fluid to alter ballot papers.

More than 6.8 million people were registered to vote in this week’s elections, seen as a test of Africa’s ability to tackle ballot fraud.

Claims of violence in parts of the country surfaced on voting day, however analysts say the election was largely peaceful, with an “impressive voter turnout”. 

Votes being counted in Malawi.