Peter Mutharika, the 85-year-old former president of Malawi, is projected to return to power, according to unofficial election results released on Tuesday by two of the country’s largest media companies.
Mr. Mutharika has won about 57 percent of the vote, far ahead of his closest competitor, the incumbent Lazarus Chakwera, according to The Nation, Malawi’s largest newspaper, and Times Television. The electoral commission has yet to release the official results.
A victory for Mr. Mutharika would mark a stunning return to power after he was unseated five years ago following just one term in office.
Mr. Mutharika, a Yale-educated former law professor, was defeated by Mr. Chakwera in a historic election rerun in 2020. But voters say Mr. Chakwera has failed to deliver on his promise to revive the economy and address corruption in this highly impoverished southern African nation, opening the door for Mr. Mutharika’s return.
In a first, Malawi’s highest court ordered the rerun five years ago after it ruled that the initial vote had been tainted by widespread irregularities. The current election has also been marred by allegations of fraud.
This time, it was not until late Friday night, nearly three days after the voting closed, that the electoral commission released the first set of results from just a handful of Malawi’s 36 voting districts. In previous elections, the counting was done more quickly, and the delay caused alarm among the two candidates.
Mr. Mutharika’s party, the Democratic Progressive Party, warned that his opponent might use a new electronic system for transmitting votes to manipulate the results. But as the first results trickled in late Friday night showing Mr. Mutharika in the lead, it was Mr. Chakwera’s party, the Malawi Congress Party, that claimed foul play. It argued, without providing evidence, that the opposition had altered the results at some polling stations.
The election has taken place against a difficult economic backdrop for many Malawians, with many facing a cost-of-living crisis and rising poverty.
Mr. Chakwera came to office promising to create a million jobs and eliminate government corruption, but critics say he has largely failed to live up to his ambitions. Many of the country’s 22 million people struggle to afford essentials like food and utilities. Fuel shortages have led to long lines at gas stations. Young Malawians have found it especially difficult to find a job, including university graduates.
The World Bank has forecast that the number of Malawians in poverty would grow this year by more than 400,000 to 15.8 million.
Analysts expected Mr. Mutharika to make a comeback because of the country’s economic challenges. He also led in the opinion polls ahead of the vote last week. His government faced corruption allegations during his first term from 2014 to 2019. But he was credited with lowering inflation and improving public infrastructure.
While things were largely calm on voting day, there was some unrest in the city of Blantyre, the country’s commercial center. Voting at a polling station was suspended for hours as protesters rioted amid allegations of fraud in favor of Mr. Chakwera.
The Elections Situation Room, a nonpartisan consortium of local election observers, reported several incidents, including the name of an opposition member of Parliament missing on some ballots, the late opening of polling centers and glitches with the system used to process voters’ identification. The consortium said it had documented complaints of vote buying and unlawful campaigning at nearly 10 percent of polling stations.
John Eligon is the Johannesburg bureau chief for The Times, covering a wide range of events and trends that influence and shape the lives of ordinary people across southern Africa.
The post Malawi’s Former President Set to Return to Power, Early Results Show appeared first on New York Times.
