Malawi president sworn in as rioters battle police

By Ed Stoddard and Denis Mzembe

BLANTYRE (Reuters) - At least one person has been shot dead by police as protesters challenge the election victory of new Malawi
president Bingu wa Mutharika, who has been sworn in after a chaotic poll criticised by foreign observers.

Innocent Idana, director of Blantyre's Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital, told Reuters 11 people had been admitted with gunshot
wounds on Monday, one of whom had died on arrival.

Several others had been treated overnight for gunshot injuries, he said, but could not specify how many.

Opposition parties said police had shot dead 11 people in the ghettos around the commercial capital Blantyre. This could not be
independently confirmed.

Mutharika can ill afford social unrest as he struggles to attract aid to deal with food shortages and an AIDS pandemic which has
slashed life expectancy in the impoverished country to 38 years.

"The international community may not immediately cut funding but if they don't sort out this election mess they could threaten to do
so," said Else Yaffe, an analyst with Pretoria-based Executive Research Associates.

"And if foreign funding is cut they might as well turn off the lights, lock the doors and leave. The economy cannot survive without
foreign aid," she said.

The European Union, the Commonwealth and African observer groups all expressed concerns over the poll last Thursday, which
took almost three days to tally.

The count's slow pace provoked allegations of vote rigging by opposition parties who had cried foul before polling began.

Opposition leader Gwanda Chakuamba has insisted he won the vote.

TOWNSHIP BATTLES

Youths in a poor suburb a few kilometres (miles) from where the swearing-in ceremony was being held ran for cover as police fired
at them, a Reuters correspondent at the scene said.

At another ghetto, the burnt-out wrecks of two lorries lay smouldering outside a warehouse where bags of maize, the staple of the
Malawian diet, had been looted.

Hours after the ceremony, angry youths were still blocking roads with burning tyres and debris while they chanted pro-Chakuamba
slogans in the poor township of Zingwangwa.

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and South African President Thabo Mbeki both attended Mutharika's swearing-in
ceremony, where the sound of gunshots could be heard echoing in the distance.

Mutharika, a 70-year-old economist who once worked as a loan officer at the World Bank, pledged to cut spending and streamline
government.

"I am optimistic that Malawi will get out of poverty...I shall reduce the cabinet to a lean and effective one in line with available
resources, review the number of state residencies and reduce expenditure," he told the audience.

Former President Bakili Muluzi, who led the landlocked country to democracy after late president Hastings Kamuzu Banda's
iron-fisted dictatorship ended in 1994, hand-picked Mutharika to succeed him.

Chakuamba has said his coalition will likely launch a court challenge but its prospects for success are remote. Official figures show
Chakuamba finished in third place.

Mutharika had previously pledged to diversify the tobacco-reliant economy by promoting other commodities and by pushing tourism
in a sun-kissed nation blessed with wildlife, lush scenery and sandy beaches on one of Africa's biggest lakes.

But to govern effectively his UDF will need to forge alliances with other parties as it fell far short of a majority in the 193-seat
parliament, picking up only 49 seats.