The people of Malawi will cast their votes on Tuesday, May 21, 2019, to elect their new president, members of parliament and local government councilors, reported Africa News.
Incumbent president Peter Mutharika will be seeking a second and final term in the upcoming election. The main rival to Mutharika and the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) are opposition leader Lazarus Chakwera of the long-established Malawi Congress Party (MCP), and Saulos Chilima of the new United Transformation Movement (UTM).
The interesting thing about the election is that the vice-president is standing against the president. Saulos Chilima, Mutharika’s Vice President, is also running for the Presidential post.
Last year, Chilima quit the governing Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to form a new party, the United Transformation Movement (UTM) but remained the country’s vice-president.
Notably, the two had a spat over President Mutharika’s decision to run for another term. Last year, Callista Mutharika, the president’s sister-in-law, suggested that the 78-year-old president was too old to seek re-election and that he should make way for his 46-year-old deputy.
As per Malawi’s electoral system, the president and vice president are elected on one ballot. This makes it impossible for the head of state to fire his deputy, even when they fall out during the course of a single term of office.
While addressing his supporters during an election campaign in Blantyre, the nation’s commercial capital, Mutharika highlighted the country’s relative economic stability during his government and said he believes in winning without trickery and in peace.
“I found a broken economy,” he told the crowd. “And I have fixed it.”
Corruption will be a major issue at these elections, following a series of high-profile scandals in the past decade. Notably, President Mutharika, who came to power vowing to tackle corruption, was himself caught up in a major scandal over a multi-million-dollar contract to supply food to the police.
