Mec expected to announce official results today
Malawi Electoral Commission (Mec) is today expected to announce official results of the court-ordered fresh presidential election which was conducted on Tuesday.
Mec conducted the election on June 23 2020 and results started trickling in on Wednesday.
Unofficial results for the election show that Malawi Congress Party (MCP) president Lazarus Chakwera, who is also Tonse Alliance torchbearer, has won the presidency.
During a press briefing yesterday morning, Mec’s Chairperson Justice Chifundo Kachale said the commission is reviewing results from all districts.
At the time he was giving the update, Kachale said the commission had reviewed about 35 percent of district results.
“Because we have to work and give you the results. The next press briefing has been delegated to our Director of Communications and Public Relations who will make an update when we are at 40% and 65% so that when the commission comes back up here, we could be announcing [final] the results,” he said.
Later in the day, at 4:30pm Mec’s Director of Communications and Public Relations Sangwani Mwafulirwa said the commission had completed about 46% of district results.
Chakwera, as per unofficial results, has defeated the incumbent President Peter Mutharika who represented Democratic Progressive Party- United Democratic Front (DPP-UDF) Alliance.
June 23 2020 was set by Malawi Electoral Commission (Mec), and endorsed by Parliament after the High Court, sitting as Constitutional Court ordered a fresh election to be held within 150 days from the day of the ruling.
Presidential election results that Times can unofficially disclose—after using a sophisticated software that aggregated data collected from almost all the constituencies— show that Chakwera was leading the poll with about 2.4 million votes, beating Mutharika, 82, who had accumulated 1.6 million votes.
However, Mec is the only legally mandated body to announce the official results of an election.
The aggregated votes show that the third contender in the election, Peter Kuwani of Mbakuwaku Movement for Democracy had polled 53,388 votes across the country. About 37,215 votes were declared null and void.
It is evident that Chakwera will win the presidency with a majority, as interpreted by the High Court to mean 50%+1, and that there will be no need for a run off.
Meanwhile reports that we have gathered indicate that Chakwera will be sworn in Lilongwe at Parliament.
Mwafulirwa says the Mec has released results for 50% of the councils. He says 2,062, 607 were the valid votes this far. Valid votes stand at 2,34 591 representing 30%.
The Malawi Electoral Commission determined some results as follows:
Nkhotakota District
Total votes=100,688
Total cast votes=99,654
Null and Void = 1,034
Chakwera=77439
Kuwani = 559
Mutharika= 21,656
Lilongwe District
Valid votes = 715,685
Chakwera=644,730
Kuwani = 2067
Mutharika= 68,888
Meanwhile, the team of commissioners has moved in quickly to dispel rumours that were making rounds that some of them were allegedly refusing to endorse the received results.
“It’s very unfortunate to my colleagues…seeing that everyone is applying themselves and working hard,” Kachale said.
