* Malawi courts ordered re-run after "systematic, grave"
fraud
* New system means winner must get 50% of vote
* Incumbent Mutharika, 79, faces one main rival
By Frank Phiri
BLANTYRE, June 23 (Reuters) - Malawians vote on Tuesday in a
re-run of a discredited poll that has become a test case for the
ability of African courts to tackle vote fraud and restrain
presidential power.
Malawi's judiciary infuriated President Peter Mutharika, in
power since 2014, when it overturned his narrow election victory
in February on the basis of "systematic and grave"
irregularities.
The supreme court upheld the decision last month, which
Mutharika, 79, called a "coup" in a campaign rally on Saturday
in the northern district of Rumphi.
The ruling echoed one by a Kenyan court in 2017, which
cancelled President Uhuru Kenyatta's election win. Both were
remarkable on a continent in which judges often serve as a
rubber stamp to executive power.
The vote looks too close to call, not least because Malawi
has since ditched its "first-past-the-post" system so the winner
has to get more than 50%.
In the May 2019 poll, Mutharika got 38.57%, 3 percentage
points more than opposition leader Lazarus Chakwera, and less
than 10 points ahead of a third candidate, Deputy President
Saulos Chilima.
The 47-year-old Chilima has bowed out and backed Chakwera,
64, which would give them a majority if they can combine their
previous votes.
Mutharika's Democratic Progressive Party is in an alliance
with the southern African nation's ex-ruling party, the United
Democratic Front, which got less than 5% last time.
Lying on a lake at the southern tip of the Great Rift
Valley, about half of Malawi's predominantly farming population
live in poverty. Its main exports are tobacco and tea.
"I must continue what I started ... to end poverty and
develop Malawi," Mutharika said on Saturday. "I'll build roads,
I'll put food on the table."
The former law professor has revamped Malawi's roads and
boosted electricity while also taming inflation. Yet critics
accuse him of doing little to tackle corruption.
Chakwera has made graft a central pillar of his campaigns.
"Hospitals will be blessed with drugs, schools will get
desks and teachers paid in cash, not arrears. We are going to
forge a Malawi ... for every Malawian," Chakwera said on
Saturday.
COVID-19 restrictions will make it tricky for foreign
observers. Yet, as Nigeria's ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo who
frequently heads African delegations to oversee elections,
pointed out in South Africa's Daily Maverick, those observers
failed to detect the fraud last time.
(Writing by Tim Cocks, editing by Olivia Kumwenda-Mtambo and Ed
Osmond)