Electoral Justice
Photograph of newly-inaugurated Malawian President Peter Mutharika with a crowd of supporters in Lilongwe. Photo courtesy of Reuters.
On 23 June, Malawi’s opposition candidate Lazarus Chakwera claimed victory in the country’s presidential poll, unseating incumbent Peter Mutharika, who has been in power since 2014.
In February, Malawi’s Constitutional Court annulled the result of the presidential election last May, due to ‘widespread, systematic and grave’ irregularities’, including reported usage of ‘corrective fluid’ on ballot papers and the failure of the election commission to address fraud complaints, in what has been dubbed The Tipp-Ex scandal, according to Vatican News.
The court’s decision was met with shows of support from the opposition and international leaders, as a show of support for the democratic process in the country. However, the judges’ apparent need to wear bulletproof vests underneath their robes was not missed by international observers.
Malawi is only the second African nation to see a presidential election overturned by the judiciary, after Kenya in 2017.
May’s elections showed Mr Mutharika as winning a victory against the two leading opposition candidates. However, the results were marred with accusations of fraud and intimidation even before they were published in their entirety.
In an almost unique show of the democratic process in sub-Saharan African nations, Mr Mutharika was unable to call on the military to stop the new election. The Malawi Defence Forces (MDF) almost immediately moved to protect civilian demonstrations and members of the judiciary from government intervention, according to Chatham House.
After the results of the second election were announced, Mr Chakwera called his victory ‘a win for democracy and justice’, and said ‘my heart is bubbling with joy’.
Mr Mutharika has denounced the election, calling it ‘the worst election in Malawi has ever had’, adding that he may mount a legal challenge, as reported by the British Broadcasting Corporation.
Despite Mr Mutharika’s statements, the Presidential guard moved to provide personal security to the president-elect after the poll’s results were announced, as reported by Al Jazeera.
The Chakwera campaigned centred on raising the minimum wage, protecting the democratic process, and other government reforms.
Mr Chakwera leads a nine party coalition, called the Tonse Alliance, and counts amongst his supporters former President Joyce Banda and Mr Mutharika’s Vice-President until last May, Saulos Chilima.
Mr Chilima ran against Mr Mutharika in the May election, finishing in third. However, Mr Chilima chose to join the main opposition for this year’s election.
Mr Chakwera is now tasked with healing a deeply divided and politicised nation. Although the February court ruling was widely regarded as a step towards democratic stability, Malawi and the region at-large still face a plethora of social, economic, military, and political issues.
Whether Mr Chakwera can successfully manoeuvre his country’s politics is still a question up in the air.
Sources:
‘Malawi counting votes in rerun of presidential election’. Vatican News, Pontifical Council for Social Communications (The Holy See), 23 June 2020,
Kell, Fergus. ‘Malawi’s Re-Run Election is Lesson for African Opposition’. Chatham House, Royal Institute of International Affairs, 01 July 2020,
https://www.chathamhouse.org/expert/comment/malawi-s-re-run-election-lesson-african-opposition#
‘Malawi opposition leader Lazarus Chakwera wins historic poll rerun’. BBC News, British Broadcastinf Corporation, 27 June 2020,
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-53207780
‘Malawi leader blasts election rerun as opposition poised to win’. Al Jazeera, Al Jazeera Media Network, 27 June 2020,
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/06/malawi-ruling-party-seeks-election-rerun-200627085409993.html