President Peter Mutharika has been re-elected for a second term following last week’s peaceful general elections, Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) chair Jane Ansah announced in Blantyre on Monday.
Announcing the presidential poll results in a tight race just minutes after a court order was lifted late on Monday, Ansah declared Mutharika and his ruling Democratic Progressive Party as the winner of the exercise with 1,940,709 or 35.57 percent of the votes.
Opposition Malawi Congress Party candidate Lazarus Chakwera came in second with 1,781,740 or 35.1 percent of the tally.
Slightly over five million voters showed up for the exercise according to the MEC chair.
This is Chakwera’s second loss to Mutharika since the 2014 elections, that saw him lose to the incumbent by 450,000 votes.
Chakwera took a court injunction on Saturday to stop MEC from announcing the results, claiming that there had been voting irregularities.
Ansah denied this, saying all disputes brought before MEC had been solved and what stopped her from announcing the final presidential election results was the court order that Chakwera had taken.
With days approaching the end of the eight-day period of results announcement, MEC’s lawyers on Sunday approached the Lilongwe High Court in the Malawi capital which had granted the MCP the injunction, in efforts to have the stop-order lifted.
There were seven presidential candidates in the presidential race, including Mutharika’s own estranged Vice President Saulos Chilima (1,018,369), who came in third to his boss; and Mutharika’s own Health Minister Atupele Muluzi (235,164), who is in fourth position.
There has been no reaction so far from the winning or losing candidates.
NM/as/APA