Dr. Lazarus Mccathy Chakwera, presidential candidate of the Malawi Congress Party, was leading by 8.970 votes against DPP torchbearer Professor Arthur Peter Mutharika as of Wednesday night.

Counting of votes started at 6 pm in most of Malawi's 5,002 polling centres after 12 hours of polling by an estimated 6.8 million voters in Malawi’s sixth multi-party polls since 25 years ago.

Over 400,000 Malawians hit by the impact of Cyclone Idai have been reached with humanitarian needs, the United Nations (UN) said Tuesday, adding that this was achieved through UN agencies in collaboration with the Government of Malawi, national and international agencies.

Malawi’s sixth multiparty polls on May 21 are “an opportunity to conduct polls which enjoy the confidence of the people, building on what has been done previously and learning also from past challenges,” Miroslav Poche, Chief Observer of the EU Election Observation Mission, told journalists in Lilongwe on Thursday.