Malawians are ready to seek out out who their subsequent president shall be as polls have closed in most components of the nation and counting has began.
Hundreds of individuals queued exterior polling stations on Tuesday to vote for a president, MPs and native councillors, keenly hoping to impact change in a rustic swamped by financial troubles. Some are nonetheless voting in areas the place polling began late.
In his marketing campaign for a second time period, present President Lazarus Chakwera pledged to repair Malawi’s financial system – as did his primary rival, octogenarian former chief Peter Mutharika.
If no candidate wins greater than half the votes, the highest two contenders will head to a run-off.
“There may be anger in us. I need to change this authorities. I need younger folks to be in good jobs,” Ettah Nyasulu, a 28-year-old waitress informed the AFP press company earlier than heading out to vote.
Malawi has lengthy been one of many poorest nations on this planet, however latest instances have been particularly punishing.
Meals prices have been rising at greater than 30% within the final yr and wages haven’t not saved tempo.
The excessive inflation fee has partly been put right down to a scarcity of overseas forex – often known as “foreign exchange” – within the banks.
“There’s a lot occurring, particularly regarding about foreign exchange, unemployment,” Rachel Chaguza, a 26-year-old college graduate who sells flowers, informed AFP after voting.
“We should scrutinise what goes flawed and alter issues for the higher.”
The southern African nation has additionally been crippled by nationwide energy outages and gasoline shortages. As folks lined as much as vote on Tuesday, annoyed motorists continued to type lengthy, snaking queues for gasoline exterior petrol stations.
President Chakwera, who has promised to deal with this scarcity, stood in line to vote with native residents at his dwelling village, Malembo, which is about 56km (35 miles) north-east of capital metropolis Lilongwe.
A number of cops and army guards watched over the 70-year-old and his spouse, as voters huddled round, hoping to catch a peek of their president.
The election is successfully a two-horse race between Chakwera and the person he beat in 2020, 85-year-old Mutharika.
Nonetheless, there are 15 different candidates, together with one other former president, and the nation’s solely feminine head of state, Joyce Banda.
A few hours earlier than the polls closed, Malawi Electoral Fee chairperson Annabel Mtalimanja stated 3.7 million folks – simply half of those that had registered to vote – had forged their poll.
One girl exterior the Malembo Major Faculty polling station informed the BBC she was so eager to forged her poll, she had camped there in a single day.
One other voter, Mercy Nedson Chimbewa, stated: “We voted due to the liberty we’ve got right here. In different nations folks haven’t got the chance to train their proper to vote.”
For essentially the most half, voting progressed easily the stations, which totalled greater than 15,000.
Nonetheless, information company Reuters reported delays at some stations as a result of issues with biometric fingerprint readers.
The electoral fee acknowledged “queueing challenges” at “one or two centres”, however stated these points have been managed.
Provisions have been made for voters that would not write – they marked their poll paper with an inked fingerprint, whereas others used a pen to pick their chosen candidate.
Previous to the polls opening, Ms Mtalimanja reminded social media influencers to not livestream or doc of themselves voting, as Malawians are prohibited from taking footage of their poll papers.
The counting of votes started as soon as the polls closed at 14:00 GMT.
The Malawi Electoral Fee has up till the tip of 24 September to announce the presidential lead to Tuesday’s ballot and the tip of 30 September for the parliamentary election.
