BULAWAYO – Malawian opposition leader and former vice president Saulos Chilima has accused Zimbabwe’s exiled former police chief Augustine Chihuri of participating in a plot to rig Tuesday’s elections, but Chihuri’s allies denied he was in that country.
Chilima, the leader of the United Transformation Movement (UTM), claimed Zimbabwe’s former police Commissioner General – who fled his country following a military coup that ousted former President Robert Mugabe in November 2017 – was in Malawi to help the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) rig this week’s Tuesday tripartite elections.
“We are saying that Chihuri must leave our country, don’t mess our elections,” Chilima told an early morning news conference at his home in Lilongwe.
But Jonathan Moyo, a former minister in Mugabe’s government who also fled to exile, denied Chihuri was in Malawi.
“This is a lie with no legs. It won’t go anywhere. I don’t know where former CGP Chihuri is, but I know where he isn’t… I know he is not in Malawi. This I know,” Moyo said on Twitter.
Chilima claimed Chihuri was hired by the DPP government in order to train parallel police officers who will pose as legitimate officers and commit electoral fraud.
He also claimed a plot to switch ballots with already marked ballot papers.
The UTM added: “We will soon be writing Malawi Electoral Commission, elaborating these anomalies so that they can have them fixed.”
Chilima, 46, quit President Peter Mutharika’s party to form the UTM, while staying on as vice president.
The other two contenders for the presidency are Lazarus Chakwera, head of the main opposition Malawi Congress Party (MCP) who has the backing of former President Joyce Banda and Atupele Muluzi, who was health minister in Mutharika’s government and is the son of former Malawi president Bakili Muluzi.
