“Banda did everything in her power to prevent Mutharika from becoming president… and then bringing charges against her,” said Clive Gabay of the Queen Mary University of London.
The election in the tiny southern African nation was dogged by controversy from the start, with some polling stations opening 10 hours late and some voting stations recording more votes than there were registered voters.
Anyone with complaints has seven days to lodge petitions with the courts.
Riot police patrolled key areas of the commercial capital Blantyre as the results were announced after earlier demonstrations turned violent.
One person was killed when police fired teargas and rubber bullets at protesters demanding a recount in the southeastern town of Mangochi.
A teenager was “killed by a teargas canister, which exploded in his hands as he was trying to throw it back at us,” Mangochi police officer Elijah Kachikuwo told AFP.
The election imbroglio is unlikely to help Malawi’s dire economic problems.
After taking office Banda oversaw the devaluation of the kwacha currency by 50 percent, the easing of foreign exchange restrictions, along with the raising of fuel prices and cutting of subsidies.
That helped restore an IMF credit line, but the country remains overly dependent on agriculture and foreign aid to survive.
Mutharika has said he will not pursue trickle-down economics, but will implement “bottom-up economics aimed at getting the poor out of poverty into prosperity”.
Some 7.5 million people were eligible to choose a president, lawmakers and local government councillors in the fifth democratic polls since the end of decades of one-party rule in 1994.
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