Malawi’s presidential campaign is in full swing despite the COVID-19 pandemic.
As soon as the country’s Supreme Court of Appeal cleared the last hurdle on the road to the 2 July presidential election, campaigns were intensified with total disregard of measures prescribed by health experts to slow the spread of COVID-19.
Last week, crowds gathered around opposition leader Lazarus Chakwera in the streets of the capital Lilongwe, to celebrate the decision of the Supreme Court of Appeal to uphold the annulment, for fraud, of Peter Mutharika’s re-election in 2019.
From public meetings, publicity caravans and door-to-door visits – the electoral frenzy is in full swing throughout the country, as if the novel coronavirus pandemic did not exist.
So I keep going to the rallies, because I know that in Malawi the coronavirus is very political…”
Indeed, while the pandemic has stirred the sacred union reflexes of most of its neighbors, it’s also fueled some very partisan fights in Malawi.
