In Malawi, the electoral commission has appealed for ‘‘peace and calm’’ as it counted ballots, following a historic poll to re-elect a president after Peter Mutharika’s victory was overturned.
It was gathered that Voters in Malawi went to the polls on Tuesday, for another round of voting process in just over a year after the Constitutional Court dramatically ruled that last year’s polls were fraught with “grave and widespread” irregularities.
Prior to the Election time, results from the May 2019 election sparked countrywide protest that lasted months, a rare occurrence in the impoverished southern African country.
Further report gathered says it took the top court six months to sift through the evidence before concluding that Mutharika was not duly elected and ordered fresh elections.
While addressing the media, the chairman of the Malawi Electoral Commission, Chifundo Kachale, said tallying of the votes from 5,002 polling stations was underway.
“We appeal to Malawians to maintain peace and calm as the vote-counting continues,” Kachale told a news conference in Blantyre.
“It’s obvious that the opposition is doing this,” he told reporters after voting in Blantyre, claiming some of his party monitors were “chased away, some were beaten”.
“It’s obviously people that are afraid of the will of the people that are engaging in these barbaric acts,” he alleged.
