Opposition leader sworn in as president

Malawi’s opposition leader Lazarus Chakwera was sworn in Sunday as the southern African country’s new president after winning the rerun of a hotly disputed election.

It was a dramatic reversal of fortune for the incumbent Peter Mutharika, whose victory in a May 2019 ballot was overturned by the Constitutional Court over fraud allegations.

Chakwera, a former evangelist preacher, was declared the winner of the election replay held on Tuesday with almost 59 percent of the vote, according to results announced late Saturday. Malawi is only the second African country south of the Sahara to have presidential poll results overturned in court, after Kenya in 2017. And it is the first time in the region that a vote rerun has led to the defeat of an incumbent leader.