A Malawian broadcaster believes that former leader Mutharika has won the election
Private TV station Times Television said on Tuesday that Malawi’s former president Peter Mutharika is likely to have won last week’s presidential race with more than 56% of the vote. This was shown on its final unofficial results dashboard.
The electoral board of the Southern African country released the official results late on Monday night, showing that Mutharika had built a large lead over the current president, Lazarus Chakwera.
More data should be made public by the commission later on Tuesday.
To win outright, a candidate must get more than half of the legal votes. If they don’t, there will be a second round of voting.
It was thought that Mutharika, who is 85 years old and was president from 2014 to 2020, would be a strong opponent to Chakwera’s re-election bid since the economy has gotten worse since the last election.
Mutharika and Chakwera, 70, had their fourth fight in the poll on September 16.
RIVALRY IN POLITICS
Malawi’s constitutional court threw out Mutharika’s 2019 election win because of problems, such as the use of correction fluid on the results sheets. This brought the rivalry between Mutharika and Chakwera into the open.
When the race was held again in 2020, Chakwera won.
When Chakwera first took office, he promised to fight corruption, but some people have said that his government only handles some corruption cases quickly and selectively.
During his president from 2014 to 2020, Mutharika, who used to teach law, was praised for improving infrastructure and lowering inflation. However, he was also accused of favoritism, which he has denied.
The election commission has until the end of Wednesday to give the official results of the presidential poll.
