The Malawian opposition United Transformation Movement (UTM) led by the country’s vice president has demanded the immediate deportation of former Zimbabwean police boss Augustine Chihuri following allegations that he is involved in rigging local elections.

According to the independent NewsDay newspaper, Saulos Chilima’s UTM made the allegations Sunday and urged the Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) to postpone the elections to a date to be determined by the electoral body.

Chihuri, who left Zimbabwe in 2017 following the fall of former Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe, was not available for comment.

In a letter to the MEC, the party said there were “strong indications of rigging plots from the ruling DPP and their working mission with Zimbabwe’s former (police) Commissioner-General Augustine Chihuri. We would further like to demand that MEC facilitates the deportation of this man from Malawi with immediate effect.”

President Peter Mutharika, who is being challenged by his deputy, Chilima, and a former pastor accusing him of corruption, is banking on the rural electorate for his governing Democratic Progressive Party.

Meanwhile, media sources in Malawi claim that the former Zimbabwean Police Commissioner was whisked out of Malawi on Monday morning longside some other Kenyans who were hired to rig the elections.

Chihuri who has been hiding since the Malawi vice President Saulos Chilima exposed him, was disguising himself as if he was either in South Africa or England.