(Bloomberg) -- Malawi’s vice president Saulos Chilima announced his candidacy to run for presidency in the 2019 elections, vowing to fight corruption.

Announcing the establishment of his United Transformation Movement on Saturday in the capital, Lilongwe, Chilima, 45, said Malawians are tired of corruption and nepotism and want change.

If elected as president of the southern African nation, Chilima pledged to seal loopholes that have led to government losing billions of kwacha from public coffers and will offer a 30-day amnesty to “all corrupt politicians” to return the funds, or they would be jailed.

Chilima declared his availability to stand as a presidential candidate for polls set for May 21 earlier this month, and said he was in talks with political parties on whether they would back him. A former chief executive officer of mobile-network operator Airtel Malawi Ltd., he left the ruling Democratic Progressive Party last month, saying corruption in the government had reached an “alarming rate.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Frank Jomo in Blantyre at fjomo@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Jacqueline Mackenzie at jmackenzie9@bloomberg.net, ;Alastair Reed at areed12@bloomberg.net, Mike Cohen

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