Malawi

Malawi A territory in central Africa. Part of the British Empire as the Central African Protectorate from 1891 (Nyasaland from 1907), it was to be used primarily as a labour resource for the mines and plantations of South Africa and Rhodesia. In 1953 it became part of the Central African Federation, together with Rhodesia (now Zambia and Zimbabwe). In protest against the rule of the White Rhodesian minority, a resistance movement formed in the late 1950s under Banda, who co-founded the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) in 1959. The party won the first parliamentary elections of 1961, so that upon independence on 6 July 1964 Banda became Prime Minister under the British Crown. Malawi became a republic within the Commonwealth of Nations in 1966.

Banda's rule was corrupt and ruthless in the suppression of opposition. In 1967 he became the first and only African head of state to recognize the apartheid regime in South Africa, visiting the country in 1971. In return for development aid, he allowed the South African-supported RENAMO forces to conduct their operations in the civil war of Mozambique from Malawi territory. However, this backfired, as access was cut off to the Mozambique ports, which had handled 90 per cent of the land-locked country's exports. Moreover, its insufficient resources were overburdened by the arrival of 750,000 refugees from Mozambique (1975–92). Even though economic growth rates remained relatively impressive, the gains were almost eliminated by the country's rapid population growth, at over 3 per cent per year one of the highest in Africa.

Increasing foreign pressure through the withdrawal of foreign aid forced Banda to agree to multi-party elections in 1994, in which his MCP won only 55 of the 177 parliamentary seats. He was succeeded as President by Bakili Muluzi (b. 1943) of the United Democratic Front, who tried to counter the corruption of the Banda regime, while seeking to overcome the effects of the failed harvests of 1992 and 1994. Muluzi was confirmed in office in 1999, albeit under the suspicion of electoral fraud. He dismissed his government after a few months owing to allegations of corruption. In 2002 three-quarters of the population were faced with starvation, as poor harvests compounded by government mismanagement led to a nationwide famine.