The losing candidate of the opposition Malawi Congress Party (MCP) Lazarus Chakwera has rejected what he called the fraudulent presidential election results, and vowed to take his case to the courts to nullify the outcome.
Chakwera said this publicly for the first time since he lost the controversial poll to incumbent President Peter Mutharika at a press conference held at his party’s head office in the capital Lilongwe on Friday.
The Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC)’s declaring Mutharika as the winner in the just-ended polls left Chakwera shocked because electoral records showed his party had carried the day, he claimed.
“What we have witnessed in front of our very eyes is not an election but daylight robbery. This is a crime against our decency as a people and our democracy as a nation,” Chakwera, a former church leader, said.
In the 2014 polls, Chakwera lost to the incumbent with 450,000 votes, in what he also claimed to be a fraudulent vote.
Chakwera lost the May 2019 election by a narrower margin of 159,000 votes to Mutharika, who was hurriedly sworn into office 14 hours later.
The opposition leader said the people who stole the election from him were expecting that once Mutharika was hurriedly sworn-in and inaugurated, “their crimes will be buried, and we will give up on reclaiming our stolen rights and votes while we suffer in silence for another five years.”
“This was not going to happen again…instead, we would fight on in the courts and show them that they are mistaken,” he said.
He appealed to the 60 percent of the Malawian voters who did not vote for Mutharika to remain calm and peaceful until the courts have ruled on the forthcoming case.
The party has 28 days to file a case on the elections in the courts.
NM/as/APA