Zimbabwe’s Deputy Minister for Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Energy Mutodi said the SADC Observer Mission (SEOM) did not have the evidence of rigging when they pronounced the 2019 elections as free and fair.
Writing on microblogging site Twitter a day after a five judges panel of the High Court, sitting as the Constitutional Court of Malawi issued a court order nullifying the results, Mutodi said:
The basis for the nullification of Malawian Presidential results is the use of Tippex to alter figures on election results forms. Such a practice is unprecedented and we believe Election Observer Missions did not have such evidence when they ruled the election credible.
The Malawi Constitutional Court declared the presidential result “invalid, null and void” after siding with the petitioners, which had argued that the vote had been rigged.
The incumbent President Peter Mutharika was declared the winner in the presidential election of May 21, 2019, but Malawi Congress Party (MCP) presidential candidate Lazarus Chakwera, who came second, and UTM Party’s leader Saulos Chilima, who finished third, challenged the results, arguing that they were manipulated.