Bingu wa Mutharika

Bingu wa Mutharika ( born February 24, 1934 in Thyolo as Webster Ryson Thom, † April 5, 2012 in Lilongwe ) was a Malawian politician and since 2004 president of his country.

Career

Rise

Mutharika was born the son of a Catholic elementary school teacher near Blantyre, the capital of the southern region. He studied at the University of Delhi in India, where he also did his degree in economics.

After his time in the public sector in Malawi and a time when the Government of Zambia, he moved in 1978 to the United Nations, where he eventually became director for trade and development finance for Africa.

One reason for Mutharika's decision to go to the United Nations, was his opposition to the Malawian regime of self-appointed " president for life " Hastings Kamuzu Banda. After Banda had been forced to liberalize his regime, Mutharika was co-founder of the United Democratic Front, the party that won the first multiparty elections in Malawi in 1994.

At this time, Mutharika was a follower of the UDF leader President Bakili Muluzi. But he soon became a critic of its economic policies and left the UDF, around 1997 to form their own party, the United Party (UP). In the presidential elections of 1999, however, he could not beat Muluzi.

Mutharika dissolved the UP again and joined again at the UDF after it had been applied from the Malawi him as Deputy Head of the Central Bank. He was appointed Minister of Economic Planning and Development and nominated by Muluzi as his successor in 2002.

President

On 24 May 2004, he won the presidential election, but the opposition under John Tembo spoke of massive electoral fraud. The EU election observers and the Commonwealth criticized gross abuses. Despite all the protests Mutharika was sworn in immediately.

Also from the presidential elections of May 19, 2009 Mutharika went out as a winner. However, in the simultaneous parliamentary elections failed his Progressive Party ( Democratic Progressive Party, DPP) an absolute majority and received 91 out of 193 seats. Of election observers, especially the bias of the state media has been criticized in favor of the president.

In January 2010, he was elected for one year as President of the African Union.

Death

On 5 April 2012, he suffered a heart attack and died before reaching the hospital.