Blantyre, June 28 — The opposition party has won fresh presidential election in Malawi, with a promise to root out corruption, describing it as the ‘biggest disease’ Malawi has ever had.
Lazarus Chakwera has become the 6th president of the country and the first to defeat a sitting president. His party, Malawi Congress Party (MCP) went to polls in alliance with the Vice President’s United Transformation Movement (UTM). One of their famous slogans has been a promise to Malawians to have ‘three meals a day.’
The opposition, Malawi Congress party has scored about 2.6 million votes against the ruling Democratic Progressive Party’s 1.7 million votes.
Last year, Malawian courts became the second in Africa, after Kenya, to quash the results of a presidential election and said the process was marred with ‘grave irregularities.’ The court also changed electoral law for the country to adopt 50+1 from the previous first-pass-the-post.
Lazarus Chakwera, 65, is a former Pentecostal church leader. His Vice, Saulos Chilima, now 45, was an economist and successful corporate executive. He campaigned with president Peter Mutharika in 2014 before the two fell out. He was still the vice president of the country on the polling date.
Speaking during his swearing into office Sunday morning, the president said together with the Vice President accepts the challenge and task.
“We will pursue it, not just as servants accountable to you voters, but as stewards of the hopes of millions of children, born and unborn, who have no vote. With your help, we will restore a new generation’s faith in the possibility of having a government that serves…,” Chakwera said to tens of thousands of supporters gathered at the event.
In an earlier interview, Eisenhower Mkaka, Secretary-General for the party described the victory as exciting considering that they have been in opposition for the past 26 years.
“It’s exciting specifically to me that I will go down in history as the secretary-general that brought the party into government. We have been going to people selling them our manifesto and agenda and we will deliver whatever we promised. Ending corruption is our priority because it has been the biggest disease destroying this nation. Oversight institutions like the Anti-Corruption Bureau will be empowered and mandated to work without interference.”
Sunduzwayo Mandise, the dean at the faculty of law at the University of Malawi and a commissioner for the Malawi Human Rights Commission commended the new electoral commission for holding a credible election.
“I think the new chairperson of the electoral commission has tried to ensure that all the legal processes are carried, from the distribution of materials to the announcements of the results,” he said. “The way they have dealt with complaints including on the narrow and void votes, all that seems to follow what court ordered so I think, so far, this election is the best in Malawi’s history of our elections; we are on the right track.”
But the outgoing president has described the fresh polls as the ‘worst in history’ citing intimidation and assault on their party monitors. He has not provided any proof to back the claims.