{"id":3711,"date":"2011-07-19T12:19:50","date_gmt":"2011-07-19T12:19:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.faceofmalawi.com\/?p=3711"},"modified":"2011-07-19T12:19:50","modified_gmt":"2011-07-19T12:19:50","slug":"i-am-not-a-dictator-says-wa-mutharika","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/2011\/07\/19\/i-am-not-a-dictator-says-wa-mutharika\/","title":{"rendered":"I am not a dictator, says Wa Mutharika"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

WA MUTHARIKA: Accused of being dictatorial and egocentric<\/p><\/div>\n

LILONGWE (AFP) \u2013Malawi\u2019s President Bingu wa Mutharika brushed off accusations that his presidency is turning autocratic, in an interview with AFP days after Britain suspended aid over complaints of poor governance.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a very open person. Some people have dubbed me dictator. They don\u2019t know what a dictator is,\u201d Wa Mutharika said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut there is also discipline, because no nation on this earth can run without discipline,\u201d he said. \u201cBut dictatorship is never in my bloodstream. I\u2019m a democrat right through.\u201d<\/p>\n

Civil society groups in Malawi have sounded the alarm over policies they say are rolling back hard-fought democratic gains made since the country\u2019s first democratic polls in 1994 removed dictator Kamuzu Banda from power.<\/p>\n

In January, Wa Mutharika signed a law allowing the information minister to ban publications deemed \u201ccontrary to the public interest\u201d, and in May local government elections already delayed for six years were again postponed.<\/p>\n

His government has also imposed a requirement for activists seeking to hold protests to make a deposit of about $15,000 with police, intended as a safeguard against rioting and property damage.<\/p>\n

The concerns of civil society were echoed in a leaked British diplomatic cable that accused Wa Mutharika of \u201cbecoming ever more autocratic and intolerant of criticism\u201d.<\/p>\n

That sparked off a diplomatic spat that saw both countries withdraw their ambassadors, while London last week suspended around \u00a319 million ($30.7 million, 21.7 million euros) of budgetary aid meant for anti-poverty programmes in one of the world\u2019s poorest countries.<\/p>\n

Britain said the aid suspension was \u201cto address UK concerns over economic management and governance\u201d, but Wa Mutharika insisted Malawi was not being singled out and would not apologise.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s certainly not a possibility. What do we apologise for? Here is an envoy who insulted our country,\u201d Wa Mutharika said. \u201cAs a matter of fact, we are already having dialogue to resume our normal relationship.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMalawi never broke its relations with Britain. It\u2019s just that somehow the representation of Britain here in Malawi didn\u2019t act in accordance with diplomatic practices and we said remove him and bring another one, that\u2019s all we asked,\u201d said Wa Mutharika.<\/p>\n

Wa Mutharika said the British aid cut would not affect the country\u2019s \u201czero-deficit budget\u201d. \u201cWe have set our budget this year of 303 billion kwacha ($2 billion, 1.4 billion euros) and we are going to raise 303 billion kwacha from our resources, so there is no funding gap whatsoever.\u201d<\/p>\n

After winning his first term in 2004 elections, Wa Mutharika won plaudits for curbing chronic hunger in Malawi with an expensive fertiliser subsidy programme that costs $180 million a year and is funded through local resources.<\/p>\n

Now the country\u2019s budget is strained, and the International Monetary Fund says its loan programme in Malawi has stalled. The resulting foreign exchange shortage has caused severe shortages of petrol and other imported goods, stoking public discontent.<\/p>\n

Activists have called for marches across the country on Wednesday, in protest at Mutharika\u2019s policies. In response, \u00a0Wa Mutharika has announced a speech for Wednesday, when he says he will discuss the activists\u2019 concerns.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnder the constitution, they will be allowed\u201d to protest, he said. \u201cI find this absurd because it\u2019s a waste of resources and time,\u201d he said. \u201cTheir concerns are invalid.\u201d \u201cI\u2019m not worried about criticism. In fact, Malawi is a success story.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LILONGWE (AFP) \u2013Malawi\u2019s President Bingu wa Mutharika brushed off accusations that his presidency is turning autocratic, in an interview with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3712,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[274],"tags":[135,303],"class_list":["post-3711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dpp-3","tag-ngwazi-bingu-wa-mutharika","tag-ngwazi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3711\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}