Bingu Mutharika has been billed as a seasoned economist who can help lift Malawi out of its economic misery. But he has also been dismissed as just another corrupt politician with little to offer the tiny southern African nation of around 12-million people that ranks among the poorest in the world.
The 70-year-old has emerged as Malawi’s president-designate following a close race against four candidates from opposition political parties in the country’s third multiparty elections.
He won 1,1-million of the votes; his nearest rival John Tembo of the Malawi Congress Party, took 846 457 votes.
Mutharika will replace President Bakili Muluzi, who having failed to secure a third term in office, put forward Mutharika as his handpicked successor from the ruling United Democratic Front (UDF).
Millions went to the polls last week in a general election that marked the end of the country’s first decade of democracy, casting their ballots against the backdrop dispute between the UDF and a coalition of opposition parties.
In the run-up to the elections there were revelations of how Mutharika lost his post as the secretary-general of the regional economic grouping, the Common Market for eastern and southern Africa (Comesa) in the late 1990s. A probe found that Mutharika who served the body between 1991 and 1997 had among others misused Comesa funds and abused his office, according to reports in the daily Nation.
But Mutharika denied everything and threatened to sue the newspaper. ”I have a clean record. I have no record of corruption,” he said in an interview with the Malawi Standard. Catholic priests have also campaigned against him.
”I have vast experience in economics and development and if people want development, I am the right man,” he said. He also declared: ”The advantage with me is that I have many international connections that will enable me to lure investors”.
Mutharika has promised to appoint a lean cabinet of ”professionals who can fight poverty”. He is to be inaugurated on Monday.
Bingu wa Mutharika was born in the country’s Thyolo district outside Blantyre on February 24 1934. He holds Masters Degree in Economics from the University of Delhi and a Ph.D in development economics from Pacific Western University in Los Angeles.
He served in the government of Malawi’s ”president for life” Hastings Banda in the 1960s and helped bring about an end to the regime in 1994. Mutharika is also a former United Nations appointed director for trade and development finance for Africa (1978 to 1990). – Sapa-DPA