Malawi: President calls cancelled election win 'death of democracy'
BBC.COM | Thursday February 6, 2020 09:16
On Monday, the court annulled the result of the election last May of which Mr Mutharika was declared the winner.
Judges said there had been vote-tampering and correction fluid was used to alter the results.
Mr Mutharika is to go to the Supreme Court to appeal against the ruling, which he says was itself 'full of errors that needed to be corrected' and a 'serious subversion of justice'.
He stressed it only related to procedural issues and not vote rigging.
The BBC's Sammy Awami in the capital, Lilongwe, says it is clear that Mr Mutharika is not going to lose the presidency without a fight.
But the president also sought to recover ground from his opponents, who have claimed the judgement as a triumph of democracy.
Mr Mutharika thanked opposition leaders for bringing their grievance to court, underlining that only a democratic state would allow such a move.
But he attacked the decision by the judges as the beginning of the 'death of Malawi’s democracy'.
Unsurprisingly the opposition disagrees. They have been celebrating Monday’s ruling as a new dawn for the country’s democracy.
But Wednesday night’s address and the upcoming appeal may have dampened that mood.