A historic day for Malawi’s democracy

THERE ARE many ways to rig an election. Voters can be beaten or bribed. Ballot boxes can be stuffed. Computers tallying results can be hacked. But few methods are more rudimentary than that used last year in Malawi’s general election. In the southern African country of 18m people the dastardly tool was Tipp-Ex, the correction fluid that has saved many a teenager’s error-strewn homework.On May 27th Malawi’s Electoral Commission (MEC) announced a victory for the 79-year-old incumbent president, Peter Mutharika. The MEC said it had received 147 reports of “irregularities”, including the use of Tipp-Ex on results sheets, but refused to call for another vote. Opposition candidates petitioned the country’s constitutional court, asking judges to nullify the vote. Protesters, many of them young Malawians born after the end of dictatorship in 1994, took to the streets to keep up the pressure on those on the bench.