Malawi votes in a historic presidential election rerun | Information

Polls opened in Malawi on Tuesday in a hotly contested presidential vote, the 2nd time in just in excess of a yr, after incumbent Peter Mutharika’s re-election was annulled above rigging.

Polling stations opened at 6am (04:00 GMT) and will previous for 12 several hours. Some 6.6 million folks are registered to vote.

The election is a great deal predicted just after the Constitutional Court docket early this year ruled that the May well 2019 vote, received narrowly by Mutharika, was fraught with “grave and common irregularities”, including the use of correction fluid on results sheets.

It requested new elections be held within 150 times of its February ruling.

The landmark verdict, which reverberated throughout African politics, produced Malawi the 2nd region south of the Sahara to have presidential poll success set aside, following Kenya in 2017.

“I am content due to the fact this rerun is the will of the persons. And with this vote, I just hope that the very best particular person wins. The will of the people will triumph,” said Peter Chadza, 26, a businessman who arrived at a polling station in the funds an hour and a fifty percent right before voting was owing to commence.

50-%-in addition-one method

Tuesday’s election is pretty much a two-horse race among the president and his most important rival Lazarus Chakwera, who lost the May possibly 2019 election by 159,000 votes.

Mutharika, now 80, gained with 38.5 p.c of the ballots versus Chakwera’s 35 percent.

On Tuesday, a candidate will have to garner more than 50 p.c of the votes to be declared the winner – a new threshold welcomed by the Public Affairs Committee, an influential quasi-spiritual civic group.

“This election is unique. To start with, this election is born out of a court docket ruling, and 2nd, they will adhere to the 50-p.c-furthermore-one technique,” the group explained in a statement.

Chakwera, 65, enjoys the assist of 9 political events in his bid to unseat the incumbent president.

A new electoral fee was appointed on June 8, with Chifundo Kachale changing Jane Ansah as chairman.

Very last week, Kachale promised “the greatest commitment of myself and the overall commission to produce a credible election whose effects will be appropriate by all stakeholders”.

Present Trapence of the Human Legal rights Defenders Coalition, which led months-long countrywide protests against final year’s election success, has significant hopes this time around.

“Our expectation is that this election will be credible and fair adequate to Malawians,” Trapence said, although warning: “We will stay vigilant.”

The election rerun is taking position amid the coronavirus pandemic that has killed 11 individuals and contaminated at minimum 730 in the nation of 18 million.

The electoral fee has furnished hand-washing services at each of the 5,000 polling stations to guard from the spread of COVID-19.

At Malembo Key Faculty in the cash Lilongwe, voters washed their arms with soap and h2o just before lining up to vote, but none wore encounter masks or retained their length in the queue.

“Persons definitely want to vote, no matter if we have coronavirus or not,” reported voter Harmless Maguya, a 34-yr-outdated driver, waiting to solid his ballot.

“We would fairly risk the disease than operate the danger of getting a president that folks really don’t want. We can not quit this critical vote simply because there are no confront masks,” he claimed.

A lady casts her ballot at the Malembo polling station in Lilongwe [Amos Gumulira/AFP]