LILONGWE-(MaraviPost)-A new survey carried out by a consortium of local and foreign pollsters indicates that with a week remaining to the general election, Malawi Congress Party presidential candidate Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera has a comfortable lead over his closest challenger Arthur Peter Mutharika of the Democratic Progressive Party.
The survey results, released on Tuesday in Lilongwe by governance strategist Shyley Kondowe, tips Chakwera to win by slightly over 55 per cent of valid votes cast ahead of Mutharika who currently stands at 34.8 percent.
The rest of the candidates share the remaining bloc of the votes.
The survey shows that Chakwera will edge Mutharika in Central and Northern regions while the latter has an upper hand in the Southern Region.
Chakwera leads Mutharika in the North with 46.8 per cent against Mutharika’s 30 per cent.
In the Central Region, the State President is way ahead with 81.5 per cent while APM trails at a meagre 12 per cent.
The Southern Region, which remains predominantly a DPP stronghold, gives Mutharika 63.7 percent leaving Chakwera at 23.1 per cent.
The sample of respondents for the survey was drawn from 3664 participants from all the 28 districts of the country.
The poll also projects a dominant performance by the ruling Malawi Congress Party in the parliamentary race especially in the Central and Northern regions.
It posits that MCP will clinch 28 of the 37 constituencies in the North, and 73 of the 93 Central Region’s parliamentary races.
The DPP is tipped to win 51 seats of the Southern Region’s 98 constituencies.
The latest survey comes two weeks after another poll by the Institute for Policy Opinion and Research (IPOR) which placed Mutharika ahead with 41 percent against Chakwera’s 31 percent.
The IPOR survey had, however, already indicated that Chakwera was making an upward surge as compared to the pre-campaign period.