- A panel of five judges in Malawi has begun to read its ruling following an appeal challenging the results of last May's presidential election.
A panel of five judges in Malawi has begun to read its ruling following an appeal challenging the results of last May’s presidential election.
President Peter Mutharika won a second term with 38.6% of the vote.
But opposition candidates Lazarus Chakwera, who came second, and Saulos Chilima, who finished third, went to court to argue that the election was not fair.
They say the way the election was handled was full of irregularities.
The judges, who arrived in court in the capital, Lilongwe, under military escort, are expected to read out a summary of their 500-page decision, according to the local Nation newspaper.
According to the official results Mr Chakwera, who claims he won the election, garnered 35.4% of the vote as the flag bearer for the Malawi Congress Party.
Mr Chilima, a former ally of the president, got 20.2%. He was the candidate for the UTM.
There is a high level of anxiety in the country following months of tense clashes between the police and opposition supporters.
Many schools have been closed and some public transport had been suspended ahead of Monday’s court decision.
What were the allegations?
The losing candidates alleged that the electoral process, especially the way the results were handled, was full of irregularities.
In court, their lawyers said that correction fluid – known locally 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.
What was the response?
In court, the Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) defended its handling of the vote as being in keeping with the law.
It said that on the few forms where correction fluid had been found, it had not been used to change a result, but to alter procedural information that had been incorrectly entered.
The commission said it had not supplied the Tipp-Ex.
