STEVEN NHLANE, DAN LANGEVELDT, Blantyre | Friday 10.30pm
BAKILI MULUZI has been re-elected president of Malawi, an election official said on Friday.
Assani Fahad confirmed a state radio report that Muluzi had beaten his main challenger, Gwanda Chakuamba, in polls held in this impoverished southern African state Tuesday.
Opposition parties have sworn to contest the result, if Muluzi was re-elected.
Thursday, 8.30pm:
PRELIMINARY results from 20 of the Malawi’s 26 voting districts in the country’s June 15 elections put incumbent President Bakili Muluzi ahead of his nearest rival by at least 250000 votes, the Election Commission said on Thursday night.
Maluzi had won 1,63-million votes by 6.00pm on Thursday evening while opposition alliance president Gwanda Chakuamba won 1,37-million votes.
Muluzi’s ruling United Democratic Front also leads the race for parliamentary seats with 93 guaranteed seats so far while the Malawi Congress Party won 62 seats and the Alliance for Democracy scooped 30 seats.
Four seats have gone to independent candidates.
Attorneys acting for the MCP/AFORD alliance have meanwhile indicated that they will file a High Court injunction demanding new elections following indications that the UDF was responsible for irregularities during the registration of voters.
Legal team spokesman, Bazuka Mhango, said on Thursday that alliance officials found a vehicle loaded with 10000 blank ballot papers in Lilongwe on the eve of the elections.
“The results of this election should be declared null and void because there were a lot of irregularities both to do with ballot papers and the registration,” he said.
Malawi’s chief electoral officer, Roosevelt Gondwe, dismissed Mhango’s threats as constitutionally impossible and insisted that the current election results were valid.
“The law requires that an application for an injunction to challenge election results should be filed 48 hours after the winner has been declared. That has not happened yet so no injunction can be served,” he said.
Gondwe announced earlier that he was satisfied the polls were free and fair. He said about 90 per cent of Malawi’s registered voters turned out to cast their votes. — African Eye News Service