An economist picked by Malawi’s outgoing President Bakili Muluzi as his successor and an opposition leader were locked in a close race on Friday, following the third free elections in the southern African nation. Bingu wa Mutharika of the ruling United Democratic Front was leading in the densely populated south but Gwanda Chakuamba of the Mgwirizano Coalition was scoring well throughout the country.
Voters in Malawi went to the polls on Thursday to elect a new president and Parliament in the third multiparty elections since the end of dictatorial rule in the Southern African country, one of the poorest in the world.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=66621">Malawi: Slouching towards democracy</a>
Wrapped in blankets against an early morning chill, voters waited in long lines to cast ballots on Thursday in Malawi’s third multiparty elections, a poll marred by logistical problems and allegations of vote rigging before it even began. President Bakili Muluzi, who led the country from dictatorship to democracy, is bowing out after a decade of deepening poverty and hunger.
Malawi: ‘We see nothing but poverty’
Malawi election puts Aids on the agenda
Voting delays and allegations of ballot rigging are casting a shadow over Malawi’s third multiparty elections on Thursday, as President Bakili Muluzi bows out of office after a decade marred by deepening poverty and hunger. While the governing United Democratic Front seems certain to retain its parliamentary majority, Muluzi’s controversial choice of successor has thrown the presidential race wide open.
Malawi election puts Aids on the agenda
Malawi is scheduled to go to the polls on Thursday for general elections — this amid polling delays, allegations of bias on the part of electoral officials and deepening poverty. The ballot had initially been set for Tuesday May 18, but was postponed by the High Court after complaints by a coalition of opposition parties.
A former economy minister hand-picked by President Bakili Muluzi is tipped to win the presidential election on Thursday in Malawi, one of the world’s poorest countries. Muluzi is touting Bingu wa Mutharika as an ”economic engineer” and has been energetically campaigning on his behalf, at times even hogging the limelight from his political protege.
With very little money, no drugs and facing a daily struggle to find food, Zex Thambo takes care of Aids orphans in a township of Malawi, one of the world’s poorest countries and among the hardest hit by the pandemic. About 85 000 people die of Aids-related illnesses a year in this southern African country of 11-million.
Malawi’s electoral commission on Saturday said presidential elections will be held on May 20, two days later than originally scheduled, following opposition complaints over irregularities in the Southern African country’s computerised voters’ roll.
A Malawi high court on Friday postponed elections due to be held early next week, after opposition parties complained of flaws in voter registration. The coalition argued that there are serious flaws in the new computerised voters’ roll which, after being revised last Friday, saw the total number of registered voters drop by one million.
In 1994, the Malawi Electoral Commission was feted for its fair and efficient organisation of a poll that ousted autocratic ruler Hastings Kamuzu Banda. A decade on, however, the lustre has been rubbed off of the organisation. It now finds itself at the centre of a row about alleged irregularities in the run-up to general elections on May 18.
Malawi’s outgoing President Bakili Muluzi has threatened to expel observers from the European Union if they campaign against his government ahead of the May 18 elections, state radio said on Monday. Although he did not mention the observers by name, Muluzi was apparently referring to the EU team.
President Bakili Muluzi on Friday commuted the death sentences of 79 prisoners and freed 320 others in a gesture to coincide with Easter. ”The president has commuted death sentences of 79 prisoners to life imprisonment and set free 320 out of 9 500 prisoners with minor offences to mark Easter festivities,” said Smart Maliro, prisons spokesperson.
As Malawi’s general elections draw closer, deepening national poverty is haunting efforts by the ruling United Democratic Front to remain in power. In March, a United Nations Development Programme study on governance in Malawi revealed that poverty in the country had worsened during the past decade of multi-party politics compared to the situation under former dictator Hastings Kamuzu Banda.
The World Bank has granted Malawi -million to resettle 25Â 000 farmers under a controversial land reform programme aimed at reducing poverty in the Southern African nation, its land minister said on Thursday. The World Bank is a major sponsor of the country’s tough economic reforms.
Malawi joined other countries on Wednesday in commemorating World Tuberculosis Day. However, the efforts of Malawian officials to curb tuberculosis (TB) are being dogged by the theft of TB drugs from state hospitals — a problem that is leading to the development of a multi-drug-resistant strain of TB.
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/ 23 February 2004
Malawian President Bakili Muluzi abruptly dissolved his 45-member Cabinet on Monday without explanation. Muluzi’s Office of the President and Cabinet released a brief statement from the administrative capital Lilongwe saying that all official duties by the ministers and their deputies would be handled by the president’s office from Monday.
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/ 23 February 2004
Two people were wounded when Malawi riot police fired live rounds at a crowd to stop a rally by opposition parties in Blantyre on Sunday, an opposition spokesperson said.
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/ 20 February 2004
Vera Chirwa is a prominent human rights activist in Malawi, a prison rapporteur for the African Union -– and someone who was imprisoned for speaking out against authoritarian rule under former head of state Hastings Kamuzu Banda. But, this pedigree wasn’t enough to earn her a shot at Malawi’s presidency during the May elections.
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/ 16 February 2004
Professor Robin Broadhead, dean of the Malawi College of Medicine, specialises in children infected with HIV/Aids. The avenue of research that he is currently pursuing is the prevention of mother-to-child infections, a task hampered by the fact that most Malawian mothers breastfeed — there simply is no alternative.
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/ 10 February 2004
Malawi’s President Bakili Muluzi on Tuesday said his own brother Dickson died of Aids three years ago, as he launched the country’s first and long-awaited policy on fighting Aids. ”My own brother, third born in our family, died of Aids three years ago,” said Muluzi, who is a strong advocate in the battle against the pandemic.
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/ 9 February 2004
Malawi’s President Bakili Muluzi will on Tuesday launch the country’s first-ever policy on HIV/Aids amid claims by health officials that the alarming infection rates in the Southern African nation have stabilised over the years. Malawi, where HIV/Aids and sexual topics are taboo, has had no Aids policy for the past 21 years.
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/ 5 February 2004
Malawian President Bakili Muluzi said on Thursday endemic corruption has ”slowed down” economic growth in the poor Southern African nation and repeated a warning that offenders will be punished. Muluzi did not elaborate on how much the economy has sufferred due to graft.
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/ 2 February 2004
Malawi has launched a fishing project that will benefit more than 300 000 people who depend on fishing for their livelihood. The project, which was launched on January 24, is expected to improve fish stocks as well as catches from Lake Malawi. Declining fish stocks has raised alarm that Lake Malawi could be affected.
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/ 23 January 2004
With just under four months remaining before Malawi’s general elections, local activists and international observers have expressed concern at the lacklustre response to voter registration efforts. The registration exercise has also prompted opposition parties to cry foul.
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/ 17 January 2004
Elephants and humans have long found themselves at loggerheads in Africa, and Malawi is no exception to this trend. Now, villagers are also exploring a more innovative way of keeping the elephants at bay: the planting of chilli pepper plants. Once harvested and graded, the chillis are sold to European countries.
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/ 15 January 2004
Malawi on Thursday appealed for international food relief, saying a third of the country’s 11-million people face imminent starvation. ”Over 3,5-million Malawians … have already run out of food and are on the verge of starvation,” Agriculture Minister Chakufwa Chihana said.
The vice-president of the main opposition Malawi Congress Party resigned on Thursday to form a new political movement. Gwanda Chakuamba (69) said he was acting under pressure from his supporters, who have been asking him to form his own party to contest May general elections.
President Bakili Muluzi’s convoy was caught in a five-car pile-up on Wednesday that injured Presidential Affairs Minister Ken Lipenga and three other people, officials said. Muluzi escaped unharmed. The accident occurred as Muluzi was returning home from the airport after attending a political rally in the Kasungu region.
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/ 20 December 2003
The global campaign against smoking has served as a wake up call for Malawi, which has an economy that is heavily dependent on the tobacco industry. The poverty-stricken southern African country is now seeking substitutes for tobacco — as yet, without much success.
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/ 18 December 2003
Malawi has failed to qualify for a share in a -billion package from the United States to fight Aids in Africa and the Caribbean because corruption in the country remains rife, the US envoy has said. ”Putting money where corruption is not controlled is a waste,” said the US ambassador to Malawi.
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/ 28 November 2003
When the Commonwealth heads of government gather in Nigeria next month for their bi-annual meeting, the agenda will probably be dominated by politics. But, if activist Julita Msanjama had her way, the leaders would spend most of their time discussing education.
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/ 31 October 2003
The gambling industry is making inroads on the African continent. If not closely monitored, it could bring with it a host of evils such as prostitution, money laundering and fraud — not to mention gambling addiction. These problems were discussed in Malawi recently at a meeting of industry regulators from around the continent.