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BLANTYRE, Malawi, May 27-- Incumbent President Peter Mutharika has been declared winner of the tightly contested presidential election while the opposition political parties claimed there were irregularities in the election. Mutharika won with 38.57 percent of the votes against his closest rival Lazarus Chakwera, the country's main opposition leader of the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) who gained 35.41 percent of the votes. Vice-President Saulos Chilima was third with 20.24 percent of the votes. Mutharika, 78, recorded a slight increase in the number of votes won from 36.4 percent he got in 2017. However, the elections were also tight in the parliamentary race with the governing Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) winning 62 seats in the 193-seat parliament while the main opposition party got 55 seats, with independents also getting 55 seats. The United Transformation Movement (UTM) of Vice-President Saulos Chilima only managed a paltry four parliamentary seats with three small political parties sharing 16 seats. Initially, there were 10 presidential candidates but three were disqualified for various reasons, according to the electoral body. The Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) declared Mutharika winner for his second and last term in office after a high court threw out an injunction filed by the main opposition party on Saturday demanding that announcement of election results for the presidential election be suspended due to irregularities in some districts. | 
