Raphael Mweninguwe

Former Malawian president Bakili Muluzi dominated local media headlines over the past three weeks after returning from the United Kingdom, where he went for a medical check-up. But this time it is not his health but his desire to run again as president in 2009 elections that has attracted the media’s attention.

President Bingu wa Mutharika of Malawi on Wednesday fired his education and human resources minister for, among other things, spending 2 165 000 kwacha (about R10 800) of public funds on his wedding. The Anti-Corruption Bureau arrested Yusuf Mwawa, who has also been relieved of his responsibility as leader of government business in the National Assembly, on Tuesday.

Opposition and donors have heaped praise on Malawi’s President Bingu Mutharika for the way in which he runs the government, but his leadership has irked a group in his ruling United Democratic Front who have held secret meetings to plan a demonstration at his Lilongwe state house. Mutharika, who succeeded Bakili Muluzi after the controversial May elections, has vowed to prosecute corrupt officials.

Malawi’s new president, Bingu wa Mutharika, sworn in on May 24, has promised wide-ranging economic reforms that, he says, will turn the country around. The list includes strict budgetary control, strengthening the national Audit Office, Accountant General and Anti-Corruption Bureau, and trimming the Cabinet from his predecessor’s 46 members to a "small but effective one".

Privatisation of public water utilities came under intense fire at the week-long Third World Water Forum that ended in Japan last Sunday. The World Bank and a handful of European corporations want poor governments to put their water utilities in private hands, ostensibly to improve the management of an ever-scarcer resource.

Malawi’s third multi-party general elections are scheduled for 2004, but the country has already been thrown into political anarchy.