Malawi's Banda of sisters

Joyce Banda was sworn in on the weekend as president of Malawi – and just the second female head of state of an African country. Banda was the country’s vice president and was promoted after 78-year-old president Bingu wa Mutharika died of cardiac arrest on Friday. Banda took the oath of office before parliament in the capital Lilongwe on Saturday as a threatened power succession struggle never eventuated. Banda and Mutharika were former party colleagues and Banda was promoted to vice president in 2009. (photo: AFP)

Mutharika and Banda ran together for the ruling Democratic Progressive Party in the 2009 elections but fell out just two months after they assumed office when the President started positioning his 72-year-old brother and Foreign Affairs Minister Peter Mutharika to succeed him on retirement in 2014. Mutharika expelled her from the party. Banda and other disgruntled politicians from the DPP and other parties launched the Peoples' Party. However Malawi’s constitution prevented Mutharika from sacking her as vice president.

Matters worsened in 2010 after former colonial power Britain slashed $4.5m from its annual $33m aid budget when Malawi bought a $13.26 million presidential jet. Britain said its aid criteria were based on the three principles of government commitment to poverty reduction, sound public financial management and human rights. Malawi relies on aid for 40 percent of its budget and the country is desperate undeveloped. Only one in 20 of Malawi's population has access to electricity while the rest depend on charcoal and paraffin for cooking and lighting respectively.

When Mutharika died, the country’s information minister Patricia Kaliati said Banda could not take over as head of state because she was in opposition. However strong calls from the US, EU and Britain and stopped a resistance movement to her ascension from gaining any traction. One of Banda's first actions was to sack Kaliati.

The 61-year-old Banda is no relation to Malawi’s founding president Hastings Banda who achieved independence for what was then Nyasaland from Britain in 1963. The earlier Banda chose the name Malawi for the country based on a corruption of Lake Maravi. Following a typical African post-colonial trajectory, Banda turned Malawi into a one party state and became immensely wealthy. A pro-Western proxy, his power and support faded after the end of the Soviet Union and by 1993 the internal pressure for democratic change was intense.

In the 1994 elections Hastings Banda was defeated by Elson Bakili Muluzi. Muluzi proved just as corrupt as his predecessor and siphoned off millions from the sale of Malawi's food reserves. Despite this Muluzi was re-elected in 1999 and tried to change the constitution to run a third time in 2004. He was frustrated by parliament, the courts and demonstrations in the street and was forced to stand aside, anointing Mutharika to replace him. Within 12 months Muluzi was apologising for his choice of successor and set himself to run again in 2009.

But an anti-corruption investigation into him in 2008 crippled his campaign and the country’s Electoral Commission and the courts combined to stop him from running again. Mutharika was at the height of his powers having overseen an increase in agricultural production. But the subsidies Mutharika paid to lift harvests could not be sustained after Britain cut its aid budget.

Joyce Banda was one of Mutharika’s earliest ministerial appointments. A single mother and refugee from a violent marriage, she had run several successful businesses before entering parliament in 2004. She quickly proved her mettle rising to become Foreign Affairs minister after just two years in office. She was made deputy for the 2009 election but felt betrayed after Mutharika endorsed his brother as successor.

The role of Peter Mutharika now becomes crucial as Banda attempts to establish her presidential credentials. Mutharika is relatively new to Malawi politics have lived in the US for decades as a teacher of law. He congratulated Banda on her appointment but is likely to become her biggest issue as he becomes DPP leader following his older brother.

His congratulations may be smart politics. Mutharika’s brother’s death was not greatly mourned. As Al Jazeera said, many of Malawi’s 13 million people saw him as an autocrat responsible for an economic crisis precipitated by the British withdrawal of aid. Fixing Malawi’s flailing economy presents a great challenge to Banda. There is plenty of time between now and 2014 for her to become unpopular allowing Mutharika an easy run at bringing the leadership back into the family.

Malawi and Mugabe

Malawi’s President Bingu wa Mutharika has come under fire from opposition leaders for a $120m maize export deal with Zimbabwe. Malawian opposition leaders accused Mutharika at weekend rallies of exporting the country's maize stocks to Zimbabwe "virtually for free" to prop up the embattled Mugabe regime. Malawi Democratic Party (MDP) president Kamlepo Kalua suggested the reason why: He said Mutharika's wife was Zimbabwean and her family had a farm in Zimbabwe. He said the deal jeopardised poverty-stricken Malawi's own food security.

Kalua also said the President was violating international trade rules by paying for the maize it was exporting to Zimbabwe. "The government has taken $300m from the Reserve Bank of Malawi to pay the National Food Reserve Authority for the maize it is exporting to Zimbabwe," Kalua said. Kalua was addressing a rally alongside former president Bakili Muluzi. Muluzi handpicked Mutharika as his successor following the end of his official two five-year terms in 2004 but is now touring the country drumming up support for third tilt when the presidential elections occur in 2009.

Malawi was settled by Bantu tribes in the 16th century. Malawi is probably a corruption of Maravi. Maravi was a Bantu state established the state of around Lake Malawi whose culture flourished for 300 years. It extended into stretches now belonging to Zambia and Mozambique. Through the coast of Mozambique, the Maravi traded ivory, iron, and slaves with the Portuguese and Arabs. In the middle of the 19th century, they were destroyed by two invasions: from the south came the Ngoni, who fled from the Zulu Kingdom in South Africa, and from the north came Muslim slave traders, who decimated and depopulated the region.

The first significant Western contact was the arrival of David Livingstone along the north shore of the lake in 1859. Livingston witnessed the slavery at first hand and estimated that 19,000 Malawian slaves were exported from Zanzibar each year. Several Scottish Presbyterian churches established missions in his wake. They were followed by a British consul in 1993 who was accredited to the "Kings and Chiefs of Central Africa”. This fiction didn’t last long. By 1891, the British established direct rule with the British Central Africa Protectorate. In 1907 the name was changed to Nyasaland (Nyasa is the Chiyao word for "lake").

The history of Nyasaland was marked with many resistance struggles. A growing European and American educated African elite became politically active. They set up the Nyasaland African Congress (NAC) in 1944. In 1958, Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda returned to Malawi after a long exile in the US. He assumed leadership of the NAC, which later became the Malawi Congress Party (MCP). Banda was imprisoned for political activities but was released in 1960 to participate in a constitutional conference in London. A year later the MCP won an overwhelming electoral victory. Banda became Prime Minister in 1963 and the British link was dissolved a year later. The new country was renamed Malawi.

Banda turned the new nation into a one party state and declared himself president for life in 1971. Hastings Kamuzu Banda would rule for over 30 years. Externally he was mostly viewed as a benign but eccentric leader. He dressed in his English-style three-piece suits, matching handkerchiefs and carried a fly-whisk. In Malawi itself views on him ranged from a cult-like devotion to fear. Banda outlawed long hair and beards for men and banned kissing in public. Towards the end of his reign, political unrest spread under pressure from Malawi church groups and the international community.

His reign was brought to an end by a 1993 referendum where the people voted overwhelmingly for multi-party democracy. Bandu and his MCP were soundly defeated in elections a year later. Bakili Muluzi was installed President as head of a coalition government. Muluzi won two terms of office but was unable to change the constitution to run a third time. And so in 2004, Muluzi reluctantly endorsed former party ally Bingu wa Mutharika for president which he won in a disputed election with just 36 per cent of the vote.

But when Mutharika resigned from the party a year later, Muluzi “apologised” to the country for picking him. The power struggle has continued since then. Mutharika sacked Coalition partners who threatened to impeach him. Last year the vice-president was arrested on charges of plotting to assassinate the president. In October 2006, the 72 year old Mutharika announced he would seek re-election in 2009 after the Malawi Constitutional Court cleared him of any imminent impeachment threat in parliament.

Malawi remains one of the poorest countries in Africa. The EU funds most Malawi government activities including food imports and anti-retroviral drugs to treat HIV. But Mutharika earned the wrath of the EU after he named a multi-million dollar EU-funded highway after Mugabe. The Robert Mugabe Highway links landlocked Malawi with Mozambique’s Indian ocean ports.

At the highway’s lavish opening ceremony surrounded by tight security to deter protests, Mutharika hailed Mugabe as a "true democrat” and “son of Africa". The Malawi government says the naming was in gratitude for Zimbabwe's job opportunities for Malawian workers. Kamlepo Kalua also said it would be inappropriate to honour the Zimbabwean leader personally "It would be a serious oversight to decorate and honour a leader who is classified as an outright dictator," he said.