[ad_1]
A Malawi court on Saturday ordered the electoral council not to announce the results of the May 21 presidential election, as a result of opposition complaints of electoral fraud, anxiety and increased tensions in the country. South East Africa.
The High Court ordered the halt of the publication of the results of the presidential election and a recount in one-third of the constituencies.
The electoral body stopped publishing the updated election results Friday after receiving 147 complaints from some of the parties involved in Tuesday's vote.
The Congress Party of Malawi (MCP), the main opposition party, Lazarus Chakwera, sued for claiming that there were irregularities in the results of 10 of the country's 28 districts.
The capital court, Lilongwe, ordered on Saturday that "the announcement of the results of the presidential election be suspended until the results … are verified by a transparent report of the ballots in the presence representatives of political parties contesting the elections ".
Commission chief Jane Ansah said she would wait until the court process was "over before announcing the results", without specifying when.
The Chief Electoral Officer, Sam Alfandikatold AFP, studied "the reasons for the injunction and decided if we were to challenge the order".
"Very flagrant irregularities"
Opposition parties complained that figures on several count sheets had been changed with the help of a liquid corrector.
MCP spokesman Eisenhower Mkaka said they turned to the courts because of "flagrant irregularities" found on the polling station results sheets.
Some documents indicated "the same handwriting from different polling stations several kilometers apart," he said, adding that there was "a lot of tippexing".
"The tippex itself should be a red flag.This should be an indication of an anomaly and an alarm signal for the Malawi Electoral Commission for someone trying to play certain games." .
"What we see is a fraudulent election, the result has been altered."
He also stated that in some cases the results were shown on improvised papers.
Vice President of Malawi, Saulos Chilima, also called for the cancellation of the results on "serious anomalies" reported during the counting of the vote.
"These serious irregularities have actually worsened and in so doing, the credibility and integrity of these elections have been considerably compromised," he said at a press conference.
"Given the chaos that ensued … I ask the Electoral Commission to cancel the cumulative vote".
A count of votes in three quarters of polling stations in the country, released Thursday, revealed that outgoing President Peter Mutharika was leading with 40.9%.
His closest rival, Chakwera, of MCP, won 35.44% of the vote, while Vice President Chilima accounted for 18% of the vote.
Chakwera warned Wednesday of alleged attempts to rig the vote, claiming that his MCP had made his own count and that, in his view, this showed that he was ahead.
The European Union Observer Mission described the vote as "well managed, inclusive, transparent and competitive".
Source link
