{"id":7272,"date":"2012-02-16T16:12:01","date_gmt":"2012-02-16T16:12:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.faceofmalawi.com\/?p=7272"},"modified":"2012-02-16T16:12:01","modified_gmt":"2012-02-16T16:12:01","slug":"is-bingu-wa-mutharika-the-latest-african-dictator","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/2012\/02\/16\/is-bingu-wa-mutharika-the-latest-african-dictator\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Bingu wa Mutharika the latest African Dictator?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Malawi was home to a bizarre and long term dictator: Hastings Kamuzu Banda. President Muluzi also tried to build a dictatorship but failed to the change the constitution to extend term limits to allow him to stay in power.<\/p>\n

Enter Bingu wa Mutharika<\/p>\n

This former World Bank technocrat, credited with turning around Malawian economy, especially agriculture is following in Hastings Banda\/Muluzi footsteps. President Bingu wa Mutharika has turned into \u00a0an intolerant tyrant.<\/p>\n

He has banned demonstrations over fuel shortages and warning Malawians \u00a0not to become \u201cinspired by Egypt\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mutharika attemps at building a dynasty<\/p>\n

Shockingly, Bingu is grooming his brother Peter, to be the Democratic Progressive Party\u2019s candidate for the 2014 polls \u2013 as the president ends his second and last term.<\/p>\n

Those who have disagreed with his choice have simply expelled from the ruling party \u2013 most notably Joyce Banda, Vice President of Malawi.<\/p>\n

Joyce Banda was expelled from the ruling Democratic Progressive Party but remains Vice President of the republic.<\/p>\n

Bingu compares Vice President Joyce Banda to Lucifer<\/p>\n

The increasingly autocratic Bengu explained his actions in a strange quasi-religious phraseology as follows: \u201cWhen God noted that Lucifer was being big-headed, he did not hesitate to evict him from the heavenly government. I am not the first to fire someone, it started in heaven. So before you start faulting me for being intolerant because I have sacked Joyce Banda from DPP, fault God for sacking Lucifer from heaven.\u201d<\/p>\n

Autocratic Bingu turns on newspapers, students and academics<\/p>\n

The 77 year would be dictator is now on the rampage. His is censoring newspapers deemed \u201ccontrary to public interest\u201d.<\/p>\n

He has tear gassed students and dismissed several lecturers at Chancellor College in Zomba for giving \u201cwrong\u201d lectures that had seen a stand-off between academics and the police. A lecturer had compared current fuel and economic malaise in Malawi with the circumstances that led to the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions.<\/p>\n

The dictatorial Bingu\u2019s intolerance has now reached global proportions.<\/p>\n

Mutharika explains his main financier-donor<\/p>\n

He has recently sent the British high commissioner, Fergus Cochrane-Dyet, packing. The High Commissioner had described President Mutharika as a \u201ccombative president\u2026 autocratic and intolerant of criticism\u201d and that \u201cthe governance situation continues to deteriorate in terms of media freedom, freedom of speech and minority rights\u201d.<\/p>\n

The UK government retaliated by asking Malawi\u2019s acting high commissioner Flossie Gomile-Chidyaonga to leave her London post.<\/p>\n

The UK is Malawi\u2019s main donor, giving up to $153m (\u00a393m) every year.<\/p>\n

What next?<\/p>\n

What next then for this posturing would-be African dictator? Will the \u00a0belligerent Mutharika lead Malawi into more disastrous consequences? Is Malawi set to join the club of African dictatorships?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Malawi was home to a bizarre and long term dictator: Hastings Kamuzu Banda. President Muluzi also tried to build a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[81],"tags":[525,759,258],"class_list":["post-7272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national-news","tag-bingu","tag-dictator","tag-malawi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7272","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=7272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7272\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}