Who is malawis leader

VOA Newscasts. Previous Next. October 06, PM. Lameck Masina. More Africa Stories. The Day in Photos. November 11, You may also like. Now he is Malawi's new president. DW takes a look at what made this man, and what kind of country he is about to lead.

Malawi's opposition leader Lazarus Chakwera has won Malawi's rerun elections held on Tuesday to become the country's new president. The Malawi Election Commission declared him the victor on Saturday with a dominant Mutharika was even sworn into power, but evidence of electoral irregularities later led to the courts annulling the results.

The scrapping of Mutharika's victory by the courts was historic as it made Malawi just the second sub-Saharan African country to have presidential poll results set aside, after Kenya in Both the Constitutional and Supreme Courts were harshly critical of how the Malawi Electoral Commission handled the election, finding the Chairperson Jane Ansah and her commissioners incompetent.

The election results also triggered months of nationwide protests, calling for new elections and demanding the Ansah's removal. Read more : Malawians relieved after court voids presidential vote. When Ansah finally caved in and tendered her resignation in May this year, Mutharika responded by appointing former high court judge Chifundo Kachale as new chairperson, who vowed that Tuesday's rerun would be a free, fair and credible rerun.

Incumbent President Peter Mutharika appointed a new head of the Malawi Electoral Commission, and ran in the election re-run. Despite Kachale being highly regarded by both the opposition and the ruling party, many feared the political clout of Mutharika, whose brother Bingu wa Mutharika served as Malawi's President from until his death in , would still enable him to maintain a hold on power.

The year-old Chakwera was born to a poor rural family in a tiny village outside of the capital, Lilongwe. He is a philosopher, theologian and clergyman by training and studied in Malawi, South Africa and the United States. Chakwera has been a presence in Malawian politics since as a leader of the Malawi Congress Party MCP the party that led Malawi's fight for emancipation from British rule in the early s.

On that party's platform, he ran for president in and , placing second both times. After each election, Chakwera, a former pastor, has preached peace and urged Malawians to accept election results. Chakwera leads the Tonse Alliance, a group of nine opposition parties that he and his running mate Saulosi Chilima forged to defeat Mutharika. Alliances this year have been more important than ever after the Constitutional Court in February ruled that the victor must gain more than 50 percent of the vote, instead of the first-past-the-post system used previously.

Lazarus Chakwera led the protests against last year's election results, citing voting irregularities. Speaking at a press conference after casting his vote on Tuesday, Chakwera said the electoral commission had so far "given us the confidence that the will of Malawians is going to be respected.

Responding to statements from Mutharika that some opposition strongholds had seen violence on polling day, Chakwera said: "This is a peaceful country and we all need to vote peacefully and we all need to respect one another.

And we do not need to fight. Accessibility Links Skip to content. Menu Close. Log in Subscribe. Jane Flanagan , Cape Town. Monday July 26 , 5. Lazarus Chakwera was feted when he won the presidency but the appointment of his daughter to a diplomatic role has angered many of his people.