Malawi President Bingu wa Mutharika won re-election in polling his rival said was rigged, but which European Union observers said were generally fair, but fell far short of international standards, including a biased media, and unfair use of government trucks by the ruling party.Despite the flaws, the EU election observation mission (EUEOM) found the elections had “so far been conducted in an environment in which the fundamental freedoms and rights of assembly, expression and movement have been generally respected.” But, “despite this the elections fell short of fully meeting Malawi’s commitments to international and regional standards for elections as a number of key problem areas exposed structural and regulatory weaknesses,” the report continued.

The assessments meant that the elections were free enough for Africa, but wouldn’t have been tolerated in a European or other developed country, similar to claims made by the opposition. The EU has had a 30-year history of cooperation with Malawi, a landlocked country in southeastern Africa that has been reaching out for western assistance for decades.

The EU from 2002-2007 gave Malawi 300 million Euro and cooperation is in a number of areas, including agriculture, food security and management of natural resources, transport and infrastructure, budget support with focus on public finance management, education, health and gender equality, good governance and civic education, economic policy development and institutional capacity on economic management issues, and the private sector and trade.

Mutharika won in an election widely viewed as a test of Malawi’s political stability, garnering 2.7 million votes to 1.2 million for his closest rival, John Tembo, who said he was not satisfied with the way the election was conducted even if the EU was, and said he would challenge the results in court. The margin was so great that Mutharika’s supporters were celebrating before it was announced. Two-term former president Bakili Muluzi did not run for president.

He was barred from seeking a third term, but his United Democratic Front formed a coalition with Tembo’s Malawi Congress Party to oppose Mutharika’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party. In a radio address to the nation, Muluzi said he had phoned Mutharika to congratulate him. “As a former president of this country I have a duty to be exemplary. For the sake of peace we have to forget the past and move forward,” he said.

Muluzi and Mutharika have been bitter rivals since Mutharika dumped the UDF after winning the presidency on the party’s ticket in 2004. Mutharika accused the party of trying to frustrate his anticorruption drive. Muluzi is one of the UDF officials to have been charged with corruption. Tembo alleged his party agents were barred from watching the count in some party strongholds that were subsequently won by the DPP and that ballot boxes in some places were not sealed. The electoral commission said it was investigating the complaints. The MCP also accused the electoral commission of failing to ensure that ballot boxes were properly sealed. The commission said it was investigating the complaints.

Mutharika, 75, an economist by training, is credited with boosting growth and improving food security in the famine-prone country of 13 million people over his five years in office. Tembo, 77, is a veteran member of the MCP, the party of autocratic, first president Hastings Kamuzu Banda. It was feared that a contested outcome could lead to a repeat of the violence that erupted after the last elections in 2004, which were also marred by irregularities.