Malawi Congress Party (MCP) leader Dr Lazarus Chakwera has told the BBC that he will continue to challenge the result of the Malawi election in the court.

He was speaking to BBC Focus on Africa in his first interview since his opponent, Peter Mutharika, was announced the winner of the presidential race.

He added that he did not attend Mr Mutharika’s swearing in earlier on Tuesday because he had not been invited.

Mr Chakwera insists there is still a case to be heard in the courts.

“If we do not fight for the Malawians they may never know what actually happened,” he said.

He argued that there had been serious irregularities in the counting of the vote.

“It’s an electoral system in which officers of the electoral commission can use Tipp-Ex [correction fluid] on results sheets from all over the country… and yet there are no consequences,” he said.

Mr Mutharika has rejected criticism of the election result, saying international observers had given the vote a clean bill of health.

More to follow…