Malawi’s 4th President Arthur Peter Mutharika of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) made a dramatic return to power by winning the 16 September General Elections with nearly 57 percent of the votes cast while his closest challenger, the incumbent Lazarus Chakwera of the Malawi Congress Party could only manage 33 percent.
Mutharika who led the South East African nation of 20 million people between 2014 and 2020, garnered 3,035,249 votes or 56.8 percent of valid votes cast against 1,765,170 votes of his closest challenger and incumbent Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera of the Malawi Congress Party.
By winning the presidential elections, the 85 year old Mutharika, a law professor, becomes the first Malawian to reclaim the presidency having previously lost it five years ago in a court ordered fresh presidential polls who saw his former vice president, Saulos Chilima teaming up with Chakwera and seven other political parties to defeat Mutharika who at that time had made an alliance with another former ruling party, the United Democratic Front (UDF).
Malawi electoral body, Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) chairperson, Annabel Mtalimanja, a judge of the High Court, declared Mutharika and his runningmate, Jane Ansah, President Elect and Vice President Elect seven days after polling had closed. According to Mtalimanja, the electoral body took the transparent tallying process which withstood both disputes and scrutiny to come up with a final tally of 5, 347,787 of valid votes out of 5,502,982 representing 76.4 percent of the 7.2 million people registered to vote.
Earlier, Chakwera had conceded defeat and congratulated him which signalled a peaceful transition of power. Mutharika and Ansah were sworn in into office in a public event on 4 October in the Southern Region city of Blantyre, where thousands of their supporters were joined by State Presidents from Mozambique and Zimbabwe while other countries sent high level dignitaries.
Mutharika vowed to root out official corruption in the public sector and rebuild the country after five years of worsening economic crisis in the South East African nation, one of the least developed countries which is vulnerable to frequent climatic shocks thereby affecting its growth and progress.
“The vision of my administration is to bail out Malawi from its current economic crisis and rebuild it through disciplined governance, hard work and a fundamental change in mindset. To achieve this, my administration will go flat out against corruption.” He told a crowd of supporters who had gathered in a sports stadium.
Mutharika said he was taking over an ailing economy with acute forex shortages resulting in persistent fuel and medical drug stock outs. The challenges have been compounded by the recent finding by the Malawi Vulnerability Assessment Committee (MVAC) report that at least 4 million people need food assistance to take them through the lean season which spans from October to April. However, he pledged improvements and vowed to “fix the country.”
“I promise you not milk and honey, but I pledge hardwork, tough and painful decisions which in the short and long term will bring in desired results and bring back the economy in good shape. I promise to choose a leaner cabinet with several ministries merged to ensure efficiency and maximum results.” he said.
The previous Chakwera led government had 32-member-cabinet which some economic analysts labelled too huge for a struggling economy like of Malawi.
Mutharika also appealed to the international community for investment, specifically addressing the United States President Donald J. Trump to assist Malawi especially now in the aftermath of cuts in U.S. foreign aid saying he would soon send a delegation to America to discuss the country’s prospects.
This comes amid recent revelations that despite registering moderate gains, Malawi’s Foreign Direct Investments (FDIs) remain below the 10-year-average and fail to show consistent momentum in attracting sustainable capital.
This was the fourth time Mutharika and Chakwera had faced each other at the ballot. They competed in 2014, 2019, 2020 and this year. Mutharika won in 2014 and 2019. However, Chakwera and former Mutharika’s deputy, Saulos Chilima successfully petitioned the courts on the 2019 elections which were nullified by the High Court sitting as a Constitutional Court which ordered a fresh presidential poll within 150 days. A landmark ruling which demonstrated the independence of the judiciary. Chakwera and Chilima teamed up and beat Mutharika in the 2020 fresh presidential elections.
After the 2020 defeat, Mutharika, then 80, retired to his lakeside home where many analysts had written him off. However, a series of governance scandals and the skyrocketing of prices of basic goods and services under the Chakwera leadership meant many citizens were losing faith in the new regime. Then came the death of vice president Chilima and eight others, in a military plane crash in June 2024 in northern Malawi.
The handling of the plane crash, left many, especially Chilima supporters having misgivings despite a government constituted Commission of Inquiry finding pilot error was the cause of the crash. Chilima’s party, the United Transformation Party (UTM) in reaction to the death, quit the government and sat on the opposition benches where it organized itself ahead of the elections.
Three months before elections, the list of presidential candidates had become clearer. 16 candidates had offered themselves to voters. It included Chakwera, Mutharika, another former president and only female candidate, Joyce Banda and a sitting vice president, Michael Usi whom Chakwera had picked to replace Chilima but dumped for a youthful Vitumbiko Mumba as running mate in the recent elections. There were a dozen other minor candidates too.
The main issues about this year’s elections were the high inflation, youth unemployment, corruption, fuel shortages and hunger.
One of the world’s least developed countries, Malawi economy has stagnated since 2020 when Chakwera took over with a growth of just 2 percent this year. The situation was compounded by the Chakwera administration’s decision in May to terminate an International Monetary Fund (IMF) Extended Credit Facility after failing to restore macroeconomic stability. For three years, inflation had been around 22 percent leading to frequent price hikes for basic goods and services which became increasingly unaffordable for the majority of the population. There have been persistent fuel shortages since 2023 too. These factors fuelled resentment especially among the youth who earlier in the year took to the streets saying the high inflation rates and erratic fuel supplies were pushing them out of small scale business ventures they do as the cost of business was high while peoples buying power was being eroded.
“Going into the 16 September General Elections, it was obvious the main issue was the state of the economy. Many of small scale business ventures had collapsed or were hanging by the thread as a result of high inflation rates. Many entrepreneurs like me were looking for someone who could fix the economic woes likes the acute shortage of foreign exchange” said Florence Adriano, a second hand clothes vendor from the capital Lilongwe.
The stronger show of Mutharika in the northern province where he scored above 50 percent, surprised political pundits as he led in all seven administrative districts. This is a region where in the 2020 elections, he got below 25 percent. Chakwera’s running mate, Mumba comes from the province too and it was expected he would do well. The last three General Elections before this year’s, saw Malawians voting on regional lines where the DPP commanded the south, MCP maintained its Centre base while the UTM enjoyed massive support in the Northern province. However, this year Mutharika swept the presidential vote despite campaigning in only two of the seven districts.
“More interesting is the fact that Mutharika only campaigned in two districts of the northern province and did not reach the far northern districts of Chitipa and Karonga where his opponent Chakwera even spent a night there. Come the results, Mutharika scooped most votes although he did not physically campaign there” says Alfred Vuso Jere, a political commentator based in the Northern city of Mzuzu.
Jere thinks there could be two factors the made voters choose to return to Mutharika. He says it could mean voters there were frustrated with how the Chakwera government failed to deliver its 2020 electoral promises to the country in general and northern province in particular. Secondly, he thinks the strategic partnerships Mutharika’s party struck with two northern province parties worked magic.
“Having supported him in 2020, people from the north part of Malawi expected Chakwera to implement infrastructural projects he promised like the construction of a university and an airport in the city of Mzuzu. When this did not materialize, they became frustrated and opted to support Mutharika who in his first term did well for the region.”
Mutharika’s party, the DPP amassed 78 seats in the 228 member National Assembly while the MCP got 55 seats. However, Mutharika will not have tough time in passing bills as most of parliamentarians who won on an independent ticket, have either joined or indicated willingness to work with the ruling party. Out of 70 independent lawmakers, 40 have pledged to support DPP in parliament. There are also a number of smaller parties who have committed to supporting the ruling party including Alliance for Democracy (Aford) which entered into an alliance with the DPP. Aford’s leader, Enock Kanzingeni Chakufwa Chihana was recently named Second Vice President by Mutharika. The Second Vice Presidency has not been filled since 2004. Ironically, the last holder of the office was Enock’s father and democracy advocate, Thom Chakufwa Chihana who passed on in 2006.
Along with president and parliamentarians, voters also elected local government representatives. Out of the 502 wards where MEC conducted elections, DPP won 249 seats followed by MCP with 143 while independent candidates got 83, and the remaining seats went minor parties. However, women rights and people with disability advocates have bemoaned number of women and persons with disabilities elected to public offices. 48 women were elected to parliament while only 2 people with disabilities have been elected which has disappointed Maggie Kathewera Banda who is the Executive Director of Women Legal Resources Centre and Coordinator for the Gender Coordination Network (GCN), a network which has been lobbying for increased women participation in politics. She says although there has been a 20 percent increase of women parliamentarians from the last cohort, she thinks it is not enough.
“This year we have seen 48 women being elected to parliament up from 40 in 2019. While this is encouraging, we still think it is not adequate as we had targeted 70 as we go towards the 50-50 representation goal. While we commend the electoral body for reducing nomination fees for women aspirants, funding gaps for most women meant they had challenges to mobilize resources.” she said.
Mutharika is currently assembling his government. He has appointed five people to cabinet positions, amongst them Josephy Mwanamvekha, a seasoned economist as the Finance and Economic Planning minister with a task to rebuild and steer the country on the path of recovery and progress after several years of stagnation. Mwanamvekha said while austerity and prudent use of public resources will be a priority, he is also eyeing mining which could be bringing an annual revenue of US$500 million if properly managed.
“This government is prioritizing efficiency and productivity so that we reap the results. We are also prioritizing mining. We think we can generate an income in excess of $500 millon annually if we operationalize the Kangankunde Graphite and Kasiya Rutile mines which are known to have rare earth deposits that could last 30 years.” he explained.