Malawians are waiting to find out who their next president will be as polls have closed in most parts of the country and counting has started.
Thousands of people queued outside polling stations on Tuesday to vote for a president, MPs and local councillors, keenly hoping to effect change in a country swamped by economic troubles. Some are still voting in areas where polling started late.
In his campaign for a second term, current President Lazarus Chakwera pledged to fix Malawi’s economy – as did his main rival, octogenarian former leader Peter Mutharika.
If no candidate wins more than half the votes, the top two contenders will head to a run-off.
“There is anger in us. I want to change this government. I want young people to be in good jobs,” Ettah Nyasulu, a 28-year-old waitress told the AFP press agency before heading out to vote.
Malawi has long been one of the poorest countries in the world, but recent times have been especially punishing.
Food costs have been rising at more than 30% in the last year and wages have not not kept pace.
The high inflation rate has partly been put down to a shortage of foreign currency – known as “forex” – in the banks.
“There is a lot happening, especially concerning about forex, unemployment,” Rachel Chaguza, a 26-year-old university graduate who sells flowers, told AFP after voting.
“We must scrutinise what is going wrong and change things for the better.”
The southern African country has also been crippled by nationwide power outages and fuel shortages. As people lined up to vote on Tuesday, frustrated motorists continued to form long, snaking queues for fuel outside petrol stations.
President Chakwera, who has promised to tackle this shortage, stood in line to vote with local residents at his home village, Malembo, which is about 56km (35 miles) north-east of capital city Lilongwe.
Several police officers and military guards watched over the 70-year-old and his wife, as voters huddled around, hoping to catch a peek of their president.
The election is effectively a two-horse race between Chakwera and the man he beat in 2020, 85-year-old Mutharika.
However, there are 15 other candidates, including another former president, and the country’s only female head of state, Joyce Banda.
A couple of hours before the polls closed, Malawi Electoral Commission chairperson Annabel Mtalimanja said 3.7 million people – just half of those who had registered to vote – had cast their ballot.
One woman outside the Malembo Primary School polling station told the BBC she was so keen to cast her ballot, she had camped there overnight.
Another voter, Mercy Nedson Chimbewa, said: “We voted because of the freedom we have here. In other countries people don’t have the opportunity to exercise their right to vote.”
For the most part, voting progressed smoothly the stations, which totalled more than 15,000.
However, news agency Reuters reported delays at some stations due to problems with biometric fingerprint readers.
The electoral commission acknowledged “queueing challenges” at “one or two centres”, but said these issues were managed.
Provisions were made for voters that could not write – they marked their ballot paper with an inked fingerprint, while others used a pen to select their chosen candidate.
Prior to the polls opening, Ms Mtalimanja reminded social media influencers not to livestream or document of themselves voting, as Malawians are prohibited from taking pictures of their ballot papers.
The counting of votes began once the polls closed at 14:00 GMT.
The Malawi Electoral Commission has up until the end of 24 September to announce the presidential result in Tuesday’s poll and the end of 30 September for the parliamentary election.
