The Malawi Electoral Support Network (MESN) has announced that Peter Mutharika of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has won the May 20, 2014 presidency elections.
Adddressing journalists on Saturday May 24, 2014 at Mount Soche Hotel in Blantyre, Steven Duwa of MESN said that they conducted a Parallel Vote Tabulation to verify the accuracy of official presidential results to be announced by the Electoral Commision (MEC).
“We deployed 800 trained and accredited Parallel Voter Tabulation observers throughout the country,” said Duwa, adding that the observers did not count any ballot papers and did not rely on any information from print and electronic media.
Steven Duwa further added that they analysed the partial official results released by MEC and they are closely tracked with data by their observers.
“Malawians should have confidence in the results being released by MEC as they are an accurate reflection of polling stations tallied….. challenges met by MEC do not undermine the intergrity of the elections since the problems were just logistical…” he added.
MESN’s final projection of results for the presidential elections are as follows: –
- DPP should get 32.7% – 39.3% of the vote
- MCP to get 25.1% – 31.7% of the votes
- PP to get 18.2% – 21.8% of the vote
- UDF to get 11.9% – 15.5% of the vote
- The remaining 8 presidential candidates to get a combined 1.2% – 3.0% of the vote
MESN’s data shows a final turnout figure for presidential election to be between 68.7% – 72.5% with 1.4% – 2.0% of ballots were declared null & void.
Duwa however said that these estimates are not the official results for the elections and it is only MEC who will announce the final results.
Meanwhile, outgoing president Dr Joyce Banda, who on Friday demanded a manual recount of all presidential ballots, a requested that was rebuffed by MEC chair Maxon Mbendera, is expected to address journalists later in the day.
