Malawi’s Peter Mutharika vowed to root out government corruption and rebuild an ailing economy after he was sworn in on Saturday for a second term as president of the southern African nation.<\/p>\n
Mutharika, 85, secured more than 56% of votes\u00a0last month, defeating outgoing president Lazarus Chakwera, 70, who took 33%. Voters rejected Chakwera after five years of worsening economic crisis in one of the world’s poorest countries.<\/p>\n
The September 16 vote marked the fourth presidential contest between Mutharika and Chakwera.<\/p>\n
CEREMONY IN BLANTYRE DRAWS LARGE CROWD<\/strong><\/p>\n Mutharika took the oath of office in a stadium in the commercial city of Blantyre packed with supporters dressed in the Democratic Progressive Party’s blue and white colours, as well as government officials and African heads of state.<\/p>\n In his inaugural address, he said his administration was inheriting a country in economic crisis.<\/p>\n Malawi is facing acute food shortages, cost-of-living pressures, and a lack of foreign exchange that has crippled businesses and led to persistent fuel shortages, he said.<\/p>\n “There is no money in government. Borrowing is extremely high, and nobody knows where the borrowed money has gone,” he said.<\/p>\n But he pledged improvements, saying: “We will fix this country.”<\/p>\n “I don’t promise you milk and honey. I promise you hard work, tough and painful decisions,” he said. “The honeymoon of looting government is over!”<\/p>\n Mutharika also appealed to the international community for investment. He addressed U.S. President Donald Trump directly, saying he would soon send a delegation to America to discuss his country’s prospects, especially after\u00a0cuts in U.S. foreign aid.<\/p>\n Chakwera’s Malawi Congress Party said in a statement that although the outgoing president was absent from the inauguration, he wished Mutharika success and good health.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Malawi’s Peter Mutharika vowed to root out government corruption and rebuild an ailing economy after he was sworn in on Saturday for a second term as president of the southern African nation. Mutharika, 85, secured more than 56% of votes\u00a0last month, defeating outgoing president Lazarus Chakwera, 70, who took 33%. Voters rejected Chakwera after five […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":18082,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":3,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"subtitle":"","format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2362,33,30],"tags":[273,274,2918,2921],"class_list":["post-18081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-politics","category-southern-africa","tag-lazarus-chakwera","tag-malawi","tag-malawi-congress-party","tag-peter-mutharika"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18081\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}