Police in Malawi have announced the arrests of eight data clerks for allegedly tampering with results after this week's elections.
Malawi’s 2019 presidential election was nullified because of widespread irregularities and officials in the African country want to avoid a similar scenario after Tuesday's general elections.
Both President Lazarus Chakwera's Malawi Congress Party (MCP) and its main rival, the Democratic Progressive Party of former president Peter Mutharika, claim to have won the presidential vote.
Chakwera’s party claimed on Friday that it had discovered irregularities in the vote count in nearly half the country's districts.
First results out
"The MCP has lodged a formal complaint to the MEC to conduct a physical audit, especially in areas where we discovered serious anomalies," Chakwera's running mate, Vitumbiko Mumba, said. He did not give specific details of the alleged anomalies.
The Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) released its first results on Friday, with the tallies from three out of four councils showing a lead for 85-year-old Mutharika.
Police said eight election data entry clerks had been arrested around the capital, Lilongwe, suspected of "manipulating data".
The arrests came as investigations continued into the alleged attempted suicide of an election returning officer, a police statement said.
Reports said the official claimed to have been offered bribes to manipulate results.
Results verification
The head of the election commission, Annabel Mtalimanja, has said the commission would not be pressured to speed up its verification work.
"We need to be meticulous," she told reporters. The commission has eight days since the vote to announce the final presidential result.
Malawi's constitutional court threw out the 2019 presidential election after correction fluid was detected on ballot papers.
Chakwera comfortably won a rerun held the following year, beating Mutharika, who had been president and held a slim advantage in the annulled first take.
At least four top Malawi broadcasters that had been running live dashboards of their unofficial voting tallies abruptly halted them on Friday without explanation.
