In the southern African nation’s capital, Lilongwe, witnesses said smoke was billowing into the sky as protesters burnt cars, offices and shops belonging to ministers and politicians from Mutharika’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
Troops were deployed on the streets of the normally sleepy commercial capital, Blantyre, and police fired teargas at marchers who had gathered outside the stock exchange in defiance of a court order.
“The earlier injunction has been withdrawn and we’re proceeding on the planned route of the demonstration but sadly we’re being smoked by teargas,” Gift Makhwawa, president of the Malawi Law Society, told Reuters.
Police spokesman Willie Mwaluka said security forces were on high alert to curb the unprecedented wave of unrest in the landlocked former British colony.
“We are assessing the situation as it unfolds. Right now I don’t have any confirmed figures of arrests, and extent of property damage,” he said.
RANSACKED
Marchers in the northern city of Mzuzu ransacked the DPP’s offices in a rare show of defiance against Mutharika, a former World Bank economist who was first elected in 2004 and who has presided over six years of pacy but aid-funded economic growth.