Court Annuls Malawi Presidential election, Orders Reform, Rerun

Court Annuls Malawi Presidential election, Orders Reform, Rerun

 

Last May Presidential election in Malawi in which President Peter Mutharika was re-elected has been cancelled by the Southern Africa’s Constitutional Court.

“We hold that the first respondent (Mutharika) was not duly elected as president of Malawi on May 21, 2019,” ruled lead judge Healey Potani.

ALSO READ: Malawi protesters say President Mutharika did not win May 21 election

“We hereby nullify the results of the presidential elections and we order for a fresh election,” he said.

It is the first time a presidential election has been challenged on legal grounds in Malawi since independence from Britain in 1964.

The Court ordered a reform of the electoral process and rerun of the election within 150 days of the annulment.

Mutharika says he will contest the ruling at a higher court. An army helicopter occasionally hovered above the courthouse and the central business district as the 500-page verdict was read out.

“It is clear that the use of Tippex (correction fluid) was employed by (electoral commission) officers to hide votes,” said judge Ivy Kamanga, taking a turn reading the judgement that took more than nine hours to deliver.

“Use of Tippex was unjustifiable and an irregularity,” she said, adding the way in which the electoral commission “dealt with the alterations was not in line with the law, hence it was irregular”.

The court also said that only a quarter of the results sheets were verified and it “finds this to be a serious malpractice that undermined the elections”.

Mutharika has been Malawi’s president since 2014. In the 2019 election, he won with a 38.5% share of the vote. Opposition party leader Lazarus Chakwera came second with 35.41 percent.

On Monday, judges annulled the vote citing irregularities and ordered a new election within 150 days.

Presidential spokesman Mgeme Kalirani said the ruling “cannot be allowed to stand … it will create a lot of problems in the country’s jurisprudence.

“It is a great miscarriage of justice,” he said in a statement.

Lawyers for Mr Chakwera and Saulos Chilima, another candidate, said correction fluid – known by the brand name Tipp-Ex – had been used on some of the tallying forms sent in by polling stations.

The changes were made after they had been signed by party agents, they said.

The lawyers also said that in some cases polling officials sent in the wrong copy of the results sheet to the main tallying centre.

They also found some mathematical errors in a small number of cases.

Though in each case there were not a huge number of errors, the lawyers said that the evidence pointed to a flawed process.

After the vote was annulled, Chakwera told thousands of celebrating supporters that the verdict was a victory for democracy.

Since the disputed results were announced last May, there have been regular anti-government protests. Some of these have resulted in looting and the destruction of property, including government offices.
“We hold that the first respondent (Mutharika) was not duly elected as president of Malawi on May 21, 2019,” ruled lead judge Healey Potani.

“We hereby nullify the results of the presidential elections and we order for a fresh election,” he said.
The case gripped the nation and kept Malawians glued to radio stations for hours on end, listening to live broadcast of witnesses presenting evidence of the alleged vote rigging during a six-month-long hearing.

On Monday security was tightened with a heavy military presence around the court and businesses pulled down their shutters for the week, fearing violence erupting after the ruling was announced.

Judges were driven to court in a military armoured vehicle.

“Credible, free and fair elections form a solid foundation for democracy,” Potani said in a preamble to the judgement.

Protesters took to the streets over several months last year demanding the resignation of the electoral commission chief, and many demonstrations turned violent.

Anger flared last month after Chief Justice Andrew Nyirenda claimed bribes had been offered to the five judges presiding over the case.

Malawi’s anti-graft body vowed to probe the allegations and arrested top banker Thom Mpinganjira last week.

The opposition has urged supporters to maintain peace and accept the court’s decision.

Mutharika, 79, has repeatedly dismissed opposition accusations that election was rigged and brushed off doubts about the official results.

In a joint statement, British, American and several European ambassadors referred Thursday to the verdict as a “pivotal moment” in Malawi’s history.