Malawi opposition files suit against vote 'robbery'

Malawi's opposition leader Lazarus Chakwera on Friday rejected the result of last week's presidential election, saying he had launched a court battle to have the vote annulled on the grounds of fraud.

Chakwera lost the election by just 159,000 votes to incumbent Peter Mutharika, who was hurriedly sworn into office the day after the delayed result was issued on Monday.

"I reject the Malawi Electoral Commission's fraudulent presidential results," Chakwera said in a statement.

He announced that he was filing a high court petition to have the election declared void.

"What we have witnessed in front of our very eyes is not an election, but daylight robbery, a crime against our decency as a people and our democracy as a nation."
At his swearing-in at a sports stadium in Malawi's commercial capital Blantyre on Tuesday, Mutharika urged opposition parties to accept the outcome, saying "they have to accept that there can only be one winner."