The Constitutional Court which is hearing the elections case has said it will be sitting up to 6 o’clock in the evening every day it is in session.
The court was earlier meeting up to 5 o’clock in the evening.
When the court reconvened Monday after a one-week break, one of the judges hearing the case Healey Potani said the decision had been made to speed up the case.
After Potani made the announcement, one of the lawyers representing President Peter Mutharika in the case, Madalitso Mmeta started cross-examining Malawi Congress Party (MCP) witness Peter Lackson. Last week, Lackson was cross-examined by Frank Mbeta, who is also Mutharika’s lawyer.
In his cross-examination of Lackson, Mmeta pressed that MCP did not verify data with that of Malawi Electoral Commission (Mec). He argued that MCP figures which were tallied at the party’s parallel tally centre differed with those tallied by Mec.
For instance, in Lilongwe North East constituency, Mmeta said MCP’s tally centre had computed number of votes MCP president Lazarus Chakwera got to be at 7,201 while Mec had recorded 28, 569 votes for Chakwera.
“You did not compare the data with the data of Mec did you?” Mmeta asked.
“Yes we did not with an explanation,” Lackson answered.
Mmeta further accused Lackson of twisting the figures to which the witness denied.