Malawi’s Supreme Court on Friday rejected President Peter Mutharika’s plea to cancel out a ruling that annulled his election victory last year, paving way for fresh elections in the country, reported Reuters.
A new election has been set on July 2, for which three candidates, including Mutharika, have already filed their nomination papers earlier this week.
The Supreme Court also upheld a Constitutional Court ruling requiring a more than 50 percent majority to secure victory and not a simple majority. It ruled that only candidates who contested the 2019 elections would be allowed to stand again in July.
Mutharika filed his nomination papers for the July re-election on Thrsday, while his opposition candidates Lazarus Chakwera and Saulos Chilima filed their nomination papers on Wednesday.
Back in February, the Malawi Constitutional Court cited “widespread, systematic and grave” irregularities when it annulled the voting results that returned Mutharika to power last May. Mutharika got 38 percent of the vote in the May 2019 election, which only constituted a simple majority.
The 79-year-old Malawi president and the electoral commission later appealed the Constitutional Court’s decision as Mutharika had accused the court of bias. He appealed saying the judges had “erred in law”.
“The various breaches undermined the duties of the Malawi Electoral Commission and grossly undermined rights of voters. None of the candidates obtained a majority,” the Supreme Court said in its ruling on Friday.
It added that the electoral commission should not have appealed the court’s ruling, as doing so reflected that it was on Mutharika’s side.
“The conduct of the electoral commission left a lot to be desired,” Justice Frank Kapanda said. “There was a lack of seriousness and incompetence.”
It was just the second time that the top court has overturned a presidential election in Africa, following the courts which ruled against Kenya’s election results in 2017.
