The May 21 elections will mark 25 years of multiparty democracy in Malawi — a trend that began only after the one-party regime, mediated by Hastings Kamuzu Banda, came to a halt in 1994.
On a superficial reading, Malawi’s story seems to epitomise many preconceived narratives about sub-Saharan Africa.
Before then, Malawi had, in effect, been a democratic dictatorship for 30 years.This wasn’t a terrible state of affairs, according to some accounts. Even Africa historian Martin Meredith, known for his pessimism, insists that under the eccentric Banda, Malawi’s economy was “often cited as an example of how a poor, landlocked, heavily populated, mineral-poor country could achieve progress in both agriculture and industrial development”.
At the end of his 30-year rule, Malawians remained poor. In 1994, they had had enough, electing him out of office and putting him on trial for the murder of four politicians in 1983. Then power appeared to get to Mutharika’s head. After being re-elected in 2009, he moved his attention from policy to politics — expelling ambassadors, cutting off ties with donors, attacking political opponents and battling his own vice-president, Joyce Banda.
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