Malawi has been named as the country of the year by the Economist newspaper for “reviving democracy in an authoritarian regime.” The London-based newspaper, which operates in over 80 countries, cited the nullification of the country’s presidential result and the peaceful shift of power that followed as best examples of how democracy should be handled.

In May 2019, Malawi’s constitutional court annulled the presidential election that declared Peter Mutharika a winner and ordered a rerun of the election citing voting irregularities. “It is almost impossible to have an election free of irregularities,” said Justice Healey Potani, who headed the panel.

“However, in the present matter our finding is that the anomalies and irregularities have been so widespread, systematic and grave such that the integrity of the result was seriously compromised, and can’t be trusted as the will of voters of the May 21, 2019 election.”

Read about it from Face2Face Africa and The Economist