Just hours after being declared winner of the country’s hard-fought presidential elections, Malawi President Peter Mutharika was sworn-in for his second term at a colourful ceremony held at a stadium in Blantyre on Tuesday.
Speaking after the swearing-in, Mutharika thanked Malawians for “electing me for the next five years.”
“This is a victory for the people and the rule of law, and democracy has won again,” he said, in thanking the people for his election and his rivals for waging good campaigns in the past two months.
Noting that the contest was now over, Mutharika called on Malawians to “accept that there could only be one winner at a time.”
“So let’s move on,” he said.
He added: “There is time to fight on, and there is time to unite. There is time to argue and there is time to agree. There is time to pursue our personal goals and there is time to our national goals.
“This is time to unite and develop this country.”
Mutharika, who led his Democratic Progressive Party founded by his late brother Bingu over 10 years ago, defeated six other candidates in controversial polls marred by opposition accusations of alleged rigging and irregularities that ended up in court over the weekend.
The court, after hearing the opposition and the Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) lawyers, decided to lift the opposition injunction to allow MEC to announce Mutharika’s victory on Monday evening.
NM/jn/APA