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Malawi’s Top Court to Decide on Challenge to Mutharika’s Rule

Malawi’s Top Court to Decide on Challenge to Mutharika’s Rule

(Bloomberg) -- Claims by Malawi’s opposition that last year’s election that returned President Peter Mutharika to power was rigged should be decided upon on Monday when the nation’s top court is due to rule on whether to annul the vote.

The electoral commission declared Mutharika, the leader of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, the winner of the May 21 ballot with 38.6% support in the first-past-the-post race. The main opposition Malawi Congress Party, whose leader Lazarus Chakwera was said to have secured 35.4% backing, alleged that ballot papers were altered to change the outcome and filed a lawsuit to have it overturned.

Malawi’s Top Court to Decide on Challenge to Mutharika’s Rule

The dispute has sparked violent demonstrations in the normally peaceful southern African nation. A child and a police officer died and businesses and vehicles were torched. Jane Ansah, the chairwoman of the Electoral Commission, has faced calls from the opposition to quit.

Unrest is likely to intensify unless the court calls for a new vote, according to George Phiri, a political scientist at the University of Livingstonia in the northern city of Mzuzu.

“The evidence presented in court was clear and it was not disputed that the election in May last year were marred by irregularities,” he said.

Church and business leaders have also raised fears of ongoing violence and called for the Constitutional Court’s ruling on the vote’s validity to be respected. The government and the electoral commission have denied the election result was manipulated.

Malawi is Africa’s biggest supplier of burley tobacco, a low quality-variety of the leaf used to fill cigarettes rather than flavor them and the crop accounts for the bulk of its exports.

While Mutharika, a former law professor, has made headway in boosting the economy, improving infrastructure and containing inflation in his first term, he drew criticism for failing to do enough to tackle corruption in one of the world’s least-developed nations.

To contact the reporters on this story: Frank Jomo in Blantyre at fjomo@bloomberg.net;Mike Cohen in Cape Town at mcohen21@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Paul Richardson at pmrichardson@bloomberg.net, Gordon Bell, Antony Sguazzin

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