Ex Attorney General Kasambara posts congratulations to Chilima, Chakwera on ‘winning’ Malawi poll case

Former minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs Ralph Kasambara has been the first to congratulate  opposition presidential Saulos Chilima of UTM Party and Lazarus Chakwera of Malawi Congress Party (MCP) for “winning” the election petition case before the final ruling by the panel of five judges.

While the  panel of judges handling the case including  Healey Potani, Ivy Kamanga, Dingiswayo Madise, Mike Tembo and Dr Redson Kapindu were delivering their judgement, Kasambara posted on his Facebook page to post his congratualtions to the petitioners.

Chilima and Chakwera were jointly asking the court to nullify the presidential poll results. They are the first and second petitioners, respectively.

The two dragged the Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) to court after the electoral body declared President Peter Mutharika of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)t he winner in the elections.

Their case premised that the poll results were fraught with irregularities and that the electoral process was mismanaged by MEC.

Despite the court finishing making ist determination, their ruling finds that there was wide-spread use of Tippex to alter results which was a serious irregularity.

The judges also ruled that MEC instructed BDO  auditors to approve manually altered result sheets.

“We find this to be a serious irregularity,” the court said.

Additionally, MEC conceded that it beamed result sheets on a screen before auditors verified the results.