Malawi Ex-President Plots Comeback In Next Election

Malawi’s former president, Peter Mutharika, has been chosen to lead the main opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) into next year’s presidential election.

It marks a comeback for the 84-year-old, who governed Malawi for six years and later suggested he would not run for office again.

He surprised many with a change of heart, saying recently that his supporters want him to save the country from being ruined by President Lazarus Chakwera.

Mutharika lost to Chakwera in 2020, in a re-run that was ordered by the country’s Constitutional Court after it annulled the previous year’s election.

Judges had ruled that there was widespread tampering in the 2019 vote, including the use of Tipp-Ex correction fluid on ballot papers, and that Mutharika’s declared victory in that poll was void.

Malawi’s judiciary were praised for their bravery in refusing to accept a second-rate election, and the political fallout in the former president’s party has been ugly.

Following a period of internal squabbling, the DPP has expelled several members including those who wanted to challenge Mutharika for the party presidency, paving the way for him to be re-elected party leader unopposed.

Monday’s announcement that he had won the official endorsement of his party as its presidential candidate was largely a formality.

This means Mutharika and Chakwera will square off against each other at the polls for the third time, each having won and lost once in the past.

Mutharika told party supporters he was ready to regain power “to remove an incompetent government which sees nothing, hears nothing and does nothing”.