Mutharika wins Malawi poll

Malawi electoral authorities declared the ruling party's Bingu wa Mutharika the new president yesterday, but an opposition coalition accused the government of vote-rigging and said its man won.

Reuters journalists saw police fire warning shots into the air and remove makeshift barricades put up by angry opposition youths on main roads leading into two townships around the commercial capital Blantyre.

In the northern town of Mzuzu, local journalist Francis Tayanja-Phiri said he saw police use teargas and fire warning shots to disperse hundreds of protesting opposition supporters.

Unconfirmed reports said an office belonging to Mr Mutharika's United Democratic Front (UDF) had been torched in Blantyre.

Violence and a suspect poll are the last things landlocked Malawi needs as it presses donors for vital aid to address food shortages and an Aids pandemic devastating one of the world's poorest countries.

The European Union, the Commonwealth and African observer groups have all expressed concerns over the conduct of Thursday's general election in the former British colony.

The UDF fell far short of a majority in the 193-seat parliament and no party was able to claim control, potentially forcing Mutharika into messy cohabitation in the legislature.

"I declare Bingu wa Mutharika the winner," Malawi Electoral Commission chairman James Kalaile told a news conference after a slow vote count that opposition politicians said showed the ballot in the southern African nation was suspect.

Outgoing President Bakili Muluzi, who led Malawi from dictatorship to democracy in 1994, hand-picked Mutharika, 70, an economist who worked for the World Bank, to succeed him.