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Malawians have voted in an 85-year-old former leader over an incumbent who presided over a multi-year economic crisis, high inflation, essential goods shortages, climate disasters and international aid cuts.
Peter Mutharika got 56.8% of the vote compared with 33% for Lazarus Chakwera, according to official results of the 16 September presidential election announced on Wednesday.
Chakwera said earlier in the day that he had called Mutharika to concede. About two-thirds of nearly 11 million eligible voters registered to vote and, of those, 76% voted.
Mutharika’s resounding victory marks the third election in a row that power has changed hands in Malawi. Chakwera had defeated Mutharika in the last ballot, known as the “Tipp-Ex election”, which was re-run in 2020 after judges ruled that outcomes had been changed using correctional fluid.
Mutharika, a former law professor, was accused by the country’s anti-corruption agency in 2018 of receiving a $200,000 kickback from a multimillion-dollar contract to supply food to the police. He was cleared of charges, which had prompted protests, and said he thought the money was an “honest donation” to his party.
“When Peter Mutharika was governing in the first term, things did not go so well. For him to come back with such an emphatic win … it shows you how badly Chakwera has done,” said Victor Chipofya, a political science lecturer at Blantyre International University.
Malawi’s economy never really recovered from the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. For the past three years, inflation has been above 20% and the economy has grown more slowly than the population. Meanwhile, a scarcity of foreign exchange has led to regular shortages of fuel, fertiliser and medicine.
Some of this has been due to climate disasters. Since the last election, the country of 21 million has been hit with multiple cyclones, including Cyclone Freddy, which killed more than 1,000 people in 2023. Last year, there was a devastating drought.
The southern African country, which had an average annual income of just $508 in 2024 according to the World Bank, has also been badly affected by aid cuts. An IFPRI study in April estimated that US aid will fall 59% this year, slashing 1% from Malawi’s GDP.
Malawi, whose major export is tobacco, has also long imported more than it exports. However, many researchers and economists have argued that the central bank made foreign exchange shortages worse by fixing the exchange rate against the US dollar. The official exchange rate is 1734 kwacha to $1, but it is as high as 5,000 on the hidden market. The government contributed by pulling out of an IMF programme that was providing a 0% interest US dollar loan.
Chipofya said: “Not that I agree personally with all the terms and conditions the IMF would bring, but as a country we need the IMF because without it then … other donors or development partners are not going to come in.”
Malawi’s economic issues are so deep-rooted that Mutharika may be unable to improve on his longtime rival’s record, said Boniface Dulani, an associate professor of political science at the University of Malawi.
“If there was an election that one would want to lose, then maybe this was one election to lose for Chakwera, because I don’t really think they are going to be able to turn things around,” he said.
