Election case adjourned to Friday

The Attorney General Kalekeni Kaphale has winded up cross examining UTM president Saulos Chilima who is the first petitioner in the ongoing election case. 

Kaphale took five days to complete cross examining Chilima on his sworn statements that have been presented before the court as evidence to justify his application to have the May 21 presidential election results nullified.

Among other areas, in the five-day period, the Attorney General questioned Chilima on issues ranging from bribing of party monitors, alteration of result sheets, and intimidation of party monitors to use of duplicates tally sheets.

Speaking after adjournment on Wednesday, Kaphale described five-day cross examination period as fruitful, saying the first petitioner in the case has proved to have no solid evidence with nullifying the results.

“He said he can’t identify anywhere where candidate votes were stolen, he can’t say where the use of duplicate affected the candidates’ votes,” Kaphale said.

“He has said the use of non-standard tally sheets did not affect valid votes and of all the questionable votes that are there in this whole election they are 198 and we haven’t cross examined them.

“The 198 couldn’t have changed the results of the election and everyone should know that.”

Lawyer representing UTM Khumbo Soko said although cross examination for the first witness has ended, his camp is not impressed with the pace at which the Attorney General is taking.

The case was adjourned to Friday to give space to the Supreme Court which was expected to hear an application by the Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) to have the case dismissed.

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