Malawi presidential elections: candidates proclaim victory before official results

The parties of the two main candidates in Malawi's presidential election declared victory Thursday, drawing rebukes from the electoral commission, which has yet to announce results.

Tuesday's vote is expected to be a close race between President Lazarus Chakwera and challenger Peter Mutharika, the former president who was beaten by Chakwera in the last elections five years ago.

Officials from Chakwera's Malawi Congress Party and Mutharika's Democratic Progressive Party held separate news briefings, stating that their candidates had won.

The Malawi Electoral Committee says it has counted more than 99% of the votes but hasn't declared any results, keeping the country, which is struggling through an economic crisis and soaring inflation, on edge.

"The commission will not hurry the results management process just because some political party leaders and candidates are piling up pressure," said MEC chairperson Justice Annabel Mtalimanja.

She told parties and their candidates to respect the counting procedures.

Election officials must declare the results of the presidential election within seven days of polling stations closing on Tuesday.

Malawians voted for the president, as well as for the makeup of Parliament and more than 500 local government representatives in a largely rural country of 21 million people in southern Africa.

The presidential race featured 17 candidates, but analysts predicted it would likely be a close contest between Chakwera, 70, and Mutharika, 85. A candidate must get more than 50% of the vote to win. If no one does there will a runoff election.

The two men were also the leading candidates in the 2019 elections, when then-incumbent Mutharika was declared the winner, only for a court to nullify the results months later due to widespread irregularities, including altered vote tally sheets with correction fluid.