This post discusses the history of Malawi, Maravi Empire, British rule, Independence ,politics and political parties of Malawi.
The History of Malawi covers the area of present-day Malawi. The region was once part of the Maravi Empire (Maravi was a kingdom which straddled the current borders of Malawi, Mozambique, and Zambia, in the 16th century). In colonial times, the territory was ruled by the British, under whose control it was known first as British Central Africa and later Nyasaland. It became part of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. The country achieved full independence, as Malawi, in 1964. After independence, Malawi was ruled as a one-party state under Hastings Banda until 1994.
PREHISTORY
In 1991 a hominid jawbone was discovered near Uraha village that was between 2.3 and 2.5 million years old. Early humans inhabited the vicinity of Lake Malawi 50,000 to 60,000 years ago. Human remains at a site dated about 8000 BCE showed physical characteristics similar to peoples living today in the Horn of Africa. At another site, dated 1500 BCE, the remains possess features resembling San people. They might be responsible for the rock paintings found south of Lilongwe in Chencherere and Mphunzi. According to Chewa myth, the first people in the area were a race of dwarf archers which they called Akafula or Akaombwe. Bantu-speaking people entered the region during the four first centuries of the “Common Era”, bringing use of iron and slash-and-burn agriculture. Later waves of Bantu settlement, between the 13th and 15th centuries, displaced or assimilated the earlier Bantu and pre-Bantu populations.
Read: POLITICAL HISTORY OF MALI
MARAVI EMPIRE
The name Malawi is thought to derive from the word Maravi. The people of the Maravi Empire were iron workers. Maravi is thought to mean “Flames” and may have come from the sight of many kilns lighting up the night sky. A dynasty known as the Maravi Empire was founded by the Amaravi people in the late 15th century. The Amaravi, who eventually became known as the Chewa (a word possibly derived from a term meaning “foreigner”), migrated to Malawi from the region of the modern-day Republic of Congo to escape unrest and disease. The Chewa attacked the Akafula, whom no longer exist.
EARLY EUROPEAN CONTACT
The Portuguese were reportedly the first to discover Malawi; in 1859, acting off a tip received from a Portuguese source, David Livingstone discovered Lake Malawi. The Yao allegedly told him that the mass of water he saw was called Nyasa. Livingstone, who did not know Chiyao, possibly thought that Nyasa was the proper name of the lake. However, the term Nyasa in Chiyao meant the lake in English. His next journey, with Bishop Charles Mackenzie from the UMCA in 1861, saw hostility erupt between the Muslim Yao and the non-Muslim Mang’anja, whom the bishop preferred to preach to; those of the Yao who practiced Islam and slavery were naturally hostile to the Christian missionaries. The skirmishes eventually subsided after Mackenzie’s death from malaria.
More groups of missionaries arrived in 1875-6 from the Free Church of Scotland, and established a base at Cape Maclear at the southern end of Lake Malawi. This time, attempts were also made to convert those of the Yao who were Muslims. Although some of the Amangochi Yao was prepared to convert, slow progress was made.
BRITISH RULE
In 1883, a consul of the British government was accredited to the “Kings and Chiefs of Central Africa” and in 1891, the British established the British Central Africa Protectorate.
In 1907 the name was changed to Nyasaland or the Nyasaland Protectorate (Nyasa is the Chiyao word for “lake”). In the 1950s, Nyasaland was joined with Northern and Southern Rhodesia in 1953 to form the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. The Federation was dissolved on 31 December 1963.
In January 1915, John Chilembwe, a Baptist pastor in south-eastern Nyasaland, led an unsuccessful revolt against British colonial rule known as the Chilembwe uprising. Chilembwe opposed both the recruitment of Nyasas as porters in the East African campaign of World War I, as well as the system of colonial rule. Chilembwe’s followers attacked local plantations, but a rapid counteroffensive by government forces defeated the rebels. Chilembwe was killed, and many of his followers were executed.
In 1944, the Nyasaland African Congress (NAC), inspired by the African National Congress’ Peace Charter of 1914, emerged. NAC soon spread across Southern African with powerful branches emerging among migrant Malawian workers in Salisbury (now Harare) in Southern Rhodesia and Lusaka, in Northern Rhodesia.
Thousands of Nyasalanders fought in the Second World War.
In July 1958, Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda returned to the country after a long absence in the United States, the United Kingdom and Ghana. He assumed leadership of the NAC, which later became the Malawi Congress Party (MCP).
INDEPENDENCE
Malawi became a fully independent member of the Commonwealth (formerly the British Commonwealth) on 6 July 1964.
Shortly after, in August and September 1964, Banda faced dissent from most of his cabinet ministers in the Cabinet Crisis of 1964. The Cabinet Crisis began with a confrontation between Banda, the prime minister, and all the cabinet ministers present on 26 August 1964. Their grievances were not dealt with, but three cabinet ministers were dismissed on 7 September. These dismissals were followed, on the same day and on 9 September, by the resignations of three more cabinet ministers in sympathy with those dismissed, although one of those who had resigned rescinded his resignation within a few hours.
Two years later, Malawi adopted a republican constitution and became a one-party state with Hastings Banda as its first president.
ONE-PARTY RULE
In 1970, Hastings Banda was declared President for life of the MCP, and in 1971 Banda consolidated his power and was named president for life of Malawi itself. The paramilitary wing of the Malawi Congress Party, the Young Pioneers, helped keep Malawi under totalitarian control until the 1990s.
Banda, who was always referred to as “His Excellency the Life President Ngwazi Dr. H. Kamuzu Banda”, was a dictator. Allegiance to him was enforced at every level. Every business building was required to have an official picture of Banda hanging on the wall. No other poster, clock, or picture could be placed higher on the wall than the president’s picture. The national anthem was played before most events – including movies, plays, and school assemblies.
While Malawi was a middle income country in the world during much of Banda’s tenure, he managed to keep peace in the country for most of the time he was in power. He was a wealthy man, like most if not all world leaders. Speaking out against the President was strictly prohibited. Those who did so were often deported or imprisoned. Banda and his government were criticized for human rights violations by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. After he was deposed, Banda was put on trial for murder and attempts to destroy evidence.
During his rule, Banda was one of the very few post-colonial African leaders to maintain diplomatic relations with Apartheid-era South Africa.
MULTI-PARTY DEMOCRACY
Increasing domestic unrest and pressure from Malawian churches and from the international community led to a referendum in which the Malawian people were asked to vote for either a multi-party democracy or the continuation of a one-party state. On 14 June 1993, the people of Malawi voted overwhelmingly in favor of multi-party democracy. Free and fair national elections were held on 17 May 1994 under a provisional constitution, which took full effect the following year.
Bakili Muluzi, leader of the United Democratic Front (UDF), was elected president in those elections. The UDF won 82 of the 177 seats in the National Assembly and formed a coalition government with the Alliance for Democracy (AFORD). That coalition disbanded in June 1996, but some of its members remained in the government. The President was referred to as Dr Muluzi, having received an honorary degree at Lincoln University in Missouri in 1995. Malawi’s newly written constitution (1995) eliminated special powers previously reserved for the Malawi Congress Party. Accelerated economic liberalization and structural reform accompanied the political transition.
MALAWI IN THE 21ST CENTURY
In 2001, the UDF held 96 seats in the National Assembly, while the AFORD held 30, and the MCP 61. Six seats were held by independents that represent the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) opposition group. The NDA was not recognized as an official political party at that time. The National Assembly had 193 members, of who 17 were women, including one of the Deputy Speakers.
Malawi saw its very first transition between democratically elected presidents in May 2004, when the UDF’s presidential candidate Bingu wa Mutharika defeated MCP candidate John Tembo and Gwanda Chakuamba, who was backed by a grouping of opposition parties. The UDF, however, did not win a majority of seats in Parliament, as it had done in 1994 and 1999 elections. It successfully secured a majority by forming a “government of national unity” with several opposition parties.
In August 2021, the Constitutional Court examines an appeal lodged by the Democratic Progress Party of Peter Mutharika. He calls for the cancellation of the 2020 presidential election because four of his representatives had been banned from sitting on the Electoral Commission.[20] However, the challenge to Malawi’s 2020 presidential elections, made by the opposition Democratic Progress Party, was dismissed by the country’s constitutional court in November 2021.
POLITICS OF MALAWI
Politics of Malawi takes place in a framework of a presidential representative democratic republic, whereby the President of Malawi is both head of state and head of government, and of a multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in both the government and the National Assembly. There is a cabinet of Malawi that is appointed by the President of Malawi. The judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature. The government of Malawi has been a multi-party democracy since 1994. The Economist Intelligence Unit rated Malawi a “hybrid regime” in 2022.
POLITICAL PARTIES
Malawi is a multi-party state system. Malawi began as a one-party state in 1964, with the MCP being the only party until 1993. A movement called the Alliance for Democracy (AFORD) under the leadership of Chakufwa Chihana grew, calling for the end of Kamuzu Banda’s dictatorship. Due to this internal and external pressure Banda agreed to hold a national referendum in 1993 where the nation voted to become a multi-party state. AFORD became the first registered opposition political party, and other opposition parties formed thereafter. The first multi-party elections occurred in 1994 in which the UDF won votes as the first administration under a multi-party system under Bakili Muluzi. Malawi is now a multi -party nation with 40 registered parties but only a few prominent ones.