History of Malawi

The history of Malawi covers the area of present-day Malawi. The region was once part of the Marawi Empire. 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. In 1991 a hominid jawbone was discovered near Uraya 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 8,000 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 sand people. They might be responsible for the rock paintings found south of Lalongwe in Chenchera and Binzi. According to Chewa myth, the first people in the area were a race of dwarf archers which they call the Kofula or Akawemwe. 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. 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, migrated to Malawi from the region of the modern-day Republic of Congo to escape unrest and disease. The Chewa attacked the Akawemwe, whom no longer exist. Eventually encompassing most of modern Malawi, as well as parts of modern-day Mozambique and Zambia, the Maravi Empire began on the southwestern shores of Lake Malawi. The head of the empire during its expansion was the Kalanga. The Kalanga ruled from his headquarters in Mankumba. Under the leadership of the Kalanga, sub-chiefs were appointed to occupy and subdue new areas. The empire began to decline during the early 18th century when fighting among the sub-chiefs and the burgeoning slave trade weakened the authority of the Maravi Empire. Initially, the Maravi Empire's economy was largely dependent on agriculture, especially the production of millet and sorghum. It was during the Maravi Empire, sometime during the 16th century, that Europeans first came into contact with the people of Malawi. Under the Maravi Empire, the Chewa had access to the coast of modern-day Mozambique. Through this coastal area, the Chewa traded ivory, iron, and slaves with the Portuguese and Arabs. Trade was enhanced by the common language of Chewa which was spoken throughout the Maravi Empire. In 1616 the Portuguese trader Gaspar Boqueiro journeyed through what is now Malawi, producing the first European account of the country and its people. The Portuguese were also responsible for the introduction of maize to the region. Maize would eventually replace sorghum as the staple of the Malawian diet. Malawian tribes traded slaves with the Portuguese. These slaves were sent mainly to work on Portuguese plantations in Mozambique or to Brazil. The decline of the Maravi Empire resulted from the entrance of two powerful groups into the region of Malawi. In the 19th century, the Ngoni or Ngoni people and their chief swan Jandaba arrived from the natal region of modern-day South Africa. The Ngoni were part of a great migration, known as the Mfecane, of people fleeing from the head of the Zulu Empire, Shaka Zulu. The Ngoni people settled mostly in what is modern-day central Malawi, particularly in Cheo and parts of Dedza district. However, some groups proceeded north, entering Tanzania and settling around Lake Victoria. But splinter groups broke off and headed back south, settling in modern-day northern Malawi, particularly Mzimba district, where they mixed with another migrant group coming from across Lake Malawi called the Balaka. Clearly, the Mfecane had a significant impact on southern Africa. The Ngoni adopted Shaka's military tactics to subdue the lesser tribes, including the Maravi, they found along their way. Staging from rocky areas, the Ngoni impis would raid the Chewa and plunder food, oxen and women. Young men were drawn in as new fighting forces while older men were reduced to domestic slaves and or sold off to Arab slave traders operating from the Lake Malawi region. YOW The second group to take power around this time was the YOW. The YOW were also known by a derogatory term a Chawa or Makawa, which is a word used by many people in southern Africa. The author of the History of the YOW, Johanna Abdallah argued that it was the Manganja who coined the term a Chawa in reference to the YOW because the Manganja and later on the Makua Lamwe failed to pronounce the proper name of YOW. Edward Alper states that the term a Chawa might have originated from the Lamwe who knew the YOW as a people who ate their own food. The YOW were richer and more independent than the Makua. They came to Malawi from northern Mozambique to escape either from famine or conflict with the Makua people who were jealous of the YOW. The factors which caused the YOW to migrate from YOLAND are complicated and need extensive research. One factor is that the Makua attacked the YOW due to jealousy. The Makua tribe had become enemies of the YOW because of the wealth the YOW were amassing through trading ivory and later on slaves to Arabs from Zanzibar and the Portuguese It was the French who influenced the Sultan of Zanzibar to procure slaves from the hinterland. In due course the Arabs, who had known the YOW before the Portuguese, asked the YOW to go to the interior and bring slaves rather than bringing ivory. The YOW, upon migrating to Malawi in the 1800s, soon began buying slaves from the Chawa and Ngoni. The YOW are recorded to have also attacked them in order to capture prisoners whom they later sold as slaves. It was through David Livingstone the world learnt that the YOW were great slavers who were capturing the Manganja. However, Livingstone saw for the first time the Portuguese from Angola capturing slaves in Botswana in 1852. The people of Chief Sabetwane in Botswana were being raided by the Portuguese slavers. This was the period before Livingstone came to Malawi in 1859. In 1859 Livingstone recorded that he had discovered Lake Malawi. The YOW who were already settled by the lake told him that the mass of water he saw was called Nyasa. Livingstone, who did not know Chiyau, possibly thought that Nyasa was the proper name of the lake. However, the term Nyasa in Chiyau meant the lake in English. Within two years of the discovery of the Lake Nyasa, Livingstone had to review his plans for colonising Malawi. He used the church to start the process of colonising the land. He brought the university's mission to Central Africa under Bishop Charles Mackenzie in 1861 to Magomero. The YOW had already settled in Magomero before 1860 and the Christian missionaries encountered resistance from them. The YOW of Magomero had embraced Islam before the 1860s. Bishop Mackenzie and Livingstone took sides with the Manganja who were non-Muslims. Wars erupted between the YOW and Bishop Mackenzie. Livingstone and Bishop Mackenzie shot the YOW, burnt their houses and fields. The wars between the YOW and Livingstone at Magomero in 1861 do not appear clearly in the history textbooks of Malawi. The Kawalo were a people who came to Malawi from Chief Sabetwane of Botswana. They were porters of Livingstone. David Livingstone left them in the Shire Valley armed with guns which they used to terrorise and kill the Manganja in order to usurp the Manganja chieftainships of Shibisa and Tangani. Thanks to the YOW, the Manganja were not wiped out from the map of Malawi. The YOW even supplied guns to Chief Moise Kasungu of Kasungu district who was being terrorised by the Ngoni followers of Chief Melwa of Mzimba. Moise's guns helped to defend the Chewa from the Ngoni and from wild animals. In the course of history the YOW were later on depicted as a people who were enslaving the original inhabitants. In fact the YOW were resisting colonisation of Malawi in the name of spreading Christianity, civilisation and commerce. After failing to convert the YOW in Magomero in 1861, the Scottish decided to send another group of missionaries. The Free Church of Scotland arrived in Mongochi in 1875. The Scots also sent another group of missionaries to convert the YOW Muslims in Kapani Blantyre in 1876. Chief Kapani gave land to the established Church of Scotland in Blantyre where they built what is known as HHI. In 1875, Chief Mpanda, a YOW Muslim, welcomed the Christians to open a mission in Cape Maclear. For six years the missionaries who settled among the YOW in Mongochi, i.e. the Free Church of Scotland, failed to convert Muslims to Christianity. Bishop Robert Laws decided to leave Mongochi and go further north to Tonga and Timbuka territories. The Timbuka and the Tonga were being terrorised by the Ngoni impis of Chief Melwa of Mzimba. A good number of the Timbuka were the slaves of the Ngoni, whom they called Soa. With this background, the Free Church of Scotland found fertile ground for the Gospel. The Timbuka and the Tonga were living in fear of the Ngoni. By 1881 the missionaries opened a station at Bandawe which was a centre of writing and reading in Nkata Bay. A school was a church and the church was a school. It was a buffer zone between the Ngoni and the Tonga. It acted as a centre of protection from the marauding Ngoni impis. The Tongas for the first time embraced Western civilisation and they became the first people to be literate through English. Some of the teachers of the Tonga were the Nyanja who had embraced Christianity at Cape Maclear in Mongochi. Later on the missionaries went to the Timbuka, who were also being enslaved by the powerful Ngonis. Robert Laws opened a mission station in Livingstonia near Rumpi in 1894. The Timbuka sought refuge among the missionaries and embraced Christianity. They became the second tribe to be the most educated in Malawi. It can be observed that by that period the Yao had completely distanced themselves from Christian education. They were still stuck with Eastern influence. They were writing and reading in Arabic. It was a blow to the Yao as Arabic education was not recognised in Malawi from 1860s up to modern times. An educated person from the 1870s up to the 1940s was the one who had an encyclopedic knowledge of the Bible, some arithmetic and English. It was from the 1940s when the government took steps to change the image of education in Malawi. Before 1940, education in Malawi was controlled by the Church. While the Free Church of Scotland in 1875 went to the Yao Muslims of Chief Mpanda, the established Church of Scotland in 1876 also went to the Yao Muslim Chief Kapani of Blantyre. Meanwhile, the White Fathers of the Catholic Church in 1889 saw permission to open a mission station in the territory of Chief Mpanda of Mongochi. The Yao had built big towns in Mongochi, and the Mpandas and Makanjila had plenty of food which attracted foreigners. The missionaries aimed to convert the Muslims of Kapani in Blantyre, and the Mpandas and Makanjila in Mongochi. The Yaas were one of the strongest tribes in Malawi. The second were the Ngoni who used the tactics of Shaka Zulu in their fighting. The failure to convert the Yao Muslims to Christianity contributed to the appearing of the negative history of the Yao people. The Yao socio-economic contribution to Malawi was not recognized, rather history judged them as great slave traders. H. H. Johnson before he came to Malawi had already planned to uproot the influence of 17 Yao chiefs and two Ngoni chiefs. On the list were chiefs such as Jalasi, Mpanda, Makanjila, Chikambu, Tilamanja, Mtipwili of the Yao and Gamani of the Ngoni. Powerful chiefs in southern Africa were to be targeted in order to create the British Empire from the Cape to Cairo. This was the dream of Cecil Rhodes. It started in South Africa where Cecil Rhodes's influence through the British crushed the Zulu Kingdom, the Peti, Ndebele of Zimbabwe and the Lozi of Zambia. With funding from Cecil Rhodes, from 1891 Johnson fought with the Yao for five years before they were subdued. Makanjila, Mpanda Jalasi were the strongest Yao chiefs who fought the British under H. H. Johnson's command. The history of the Yao conversion to Islam can be traced through their long expeditions to the east coast especially to Kilwa and Zanzibar. The Yao had begun to be attracted and converted to Islam before the 1840s. Selim bin Abdallah, who is better known as the Jumbe of Nkotakota, followed in the Yao footsteps in 1840. It was from the Yao in the Niamwet Sea he got accurate information about the geography of Malawi. In Nkotakota Jumbe employed a number of Yao and Bisa. The Bisa had known the Yao through the ivory trade which they had both practiced along the Luangwa Valley where elephants were abundant. It must be understood that Islam in Malawi can be divided into phases. The Yao ruling class, particularly Chief Makanjila, officially is said to have recommended Islam in 1870 like their Arab trading partners rather than the traditional belief in Nungu. The Yao were not animist before Islam. They knew that there is one God known as Aminani, Akipinga, or Wakalakatel. They did not worship idols, rather their spiritual place was under an solo tree where they asked the assistance of God through a massacre. They believed that it was impossible to approach God directly but through a massacre. As a benefit of their conversion, the Yao employed Swahili and Arab sheikhs from the coast who promoted literacy and founded mosques. Chief Mpanda and Mongochi had almost 12 madrasas before the Christian missionaries arrived in 1875. At those madrasas Yao children were taught how to read and write before the Christian missionaries arrived in 1875. The Yao were the first people in Malawi to be literate. They learnt how to read and write through the Arabic alphabet. Their writings were in the key Swahili language, which became a lingua franca of Malawi from 1870 to the 1960s. In contemporary history the Yao are known as illiterate people because they did not embrace western education which had a condition of one converting to Christianity before going to school. The school was the church and church was a school. In this way the Yao distanced themselves from the school. The most educated people in Malawi were found in Nkata Bay and Rumpi. These were the two places where the Tonga in 1881 and the Tambuka in 1894 embraced Christianity out of fear of the powerful Ngoni impis who were terrorizing them Leroy Vale. The first people to attend school were the Tambuka slave children. The Ngoni with their children were suspicious of the penetration of the missionaries in their domain. Today we find few Yassin government departments, which has forced a large number of them to migrate to South Africa as a source of labour. In Malawi the Yao are farmers, tailors, hawkers, guards, fishermen and working in unskilled manual jobs. From the 1980s the Yao have been sending their children to foreign universities because it has been difficult for them to study at the University of Malawi since 1965. At the present time government departments have employed graduates from University of Zanzibar, the Islamic University of Uganda and International University of Sudan. The Yao believe that they have been deliberately marginalized by the authorities because of their faith. A number of Yao Muslims at one time concealed their Yao or Islamic names in order to pass to secondary school. Mariam was known as Mary, Yusufu was called Joseph, Che Segal became Jeanette. Arabs and their Swahili allies Using their strong partnership with the Yao, the Arab traders set up several trading posts along the shore of Lake Malawi. The Yao expeditions to the east attracted the attention of the Swahili Arabs. It was from the Yao, the Swahili and Arabs knew the existence and the geography of Lake Malawi. Jumei followed the Yao trade route from the eastern side of Lake Malawi up to Nkotakota. When Jumei arrived in Nkotakota in 1840 he found a number of Yao in Bisa well established. Some of those Yao he found in Nkotakota were already Islamized and he opted to employ them rather than employing non-Muslim Chewa. During the height of his power, Jumei transported between 5,000 and 20,000 slaves through Nkotakota annually. From Nkotakota, the slaves were transported in caravans of no less than 500 slaves to the small island of Kilwakeziwani off the coast of modern-day Tanzania. The founding of these various posts effectively shifted the slave trade in Malawi from the Portuguese in Mozambique to the Arabs of Zanzibar. Although the Yao and the Angoni continually clashed with each other, neither was able to win a decisive victory. However, the Angoni of Dedza opted to work-to-work the Yao of Mpandas. The remaining members of the Marawi Empire, however, were nearly wiped out in attacks from both sides. Some Aqua chiefs saved themselves by creating alliances with the Swahili people who were allied with the Arab slave traders. Lamwe of Malawi The Lamwe of Malawi are a recent introduction having arrived as late as the 1890s. The Lamwe came from a hill in Mozambique called Ulamwe, north of the Zambezi River and southeast of Lake Chilwa in Malawi. Theirs was also a story of hunger largely instigated by the Portuguese settlers moving into the neighborhoods of Ulamwe. To escape from ill-treatment, the Lamwe headed north and entered Nyasalan by way of the southern tip of Lake Chilwa, settling in the Falombe and Mulanje areas. In Mulanje they found the Yao and Manganja already settled. The Yao chiefs such as Chikambu, Atilamanja, Matipwili, Juma, Chiuda welcomed the Lamwe as their cousins from Mozambique. A large number of Lamwe were given land by the Yao and Manganja. Later on the Lamwe got employment on tea estates that various British companies were establishing on the foothills of Mount Mulanje. They gradually spread into Tiolo and Chiradzulu. The Lamwe readily mixed with the local Manganja tribes, and there are no reported cases of tribal conflict. Early European contact The location of Malawi was known to the Arabs and Swahili of the east coast through the Yao. Later on it was the Portuguese who learned of the existence of Lake Malawi. After the Portuguese arrival in the area in the 16th century, the next significant western contact was the arrival of David Livingstone along the shore of Lake Malawi in 1859. Livingstone is said to have heard about the existence of Lake Malawi from a Portuguese in Taytay. In 1859 it is recorded that he discovered the mass of water which was called by Yao people as Nyasa in Xiyao. Livingstone was surprised seeing the presence of Islam among the Yao of Chief Mpanda who had more than 12 madrasas running Islamic lessons, writing and reading Arabic. With this background, Livingstone painted a gloomy picture of the Manganja being captured, killed and enslaved by the marauding Yao from Mozambique. In 1861 under Bishop Charles Mackenzie missionaries of the university's mission to central Africa were sent to open a mission in Magomero where the Yao were already Muslims. The Bishop and Livingstone took the side of the Manganja and the politics of that area. Wars between the Yao and Bishop Mackenzie were fought. Crops and villages of the Yao were burned by Livingstone and Bishop Mackenzie. The mission was abandoned after the death of Bishop Mackenzie. The UMCA shifted its sphere to Morambola in Mozambique. After the failure of the UMCA in Magomero, Scottish Presbyterian churches established missions in Malawi, such as the St Michael and All Angels Church in Blantyre founded in 1876. The target once again were the Yao Muslims who had embraced Islam earlier than the 1870s. By the time the established Church of Scotland came to Malawi, they found Chief Kapani a Yao Muslim ruling what is known as Blantyre today. It was Kapani who gave the missionaries land to establish the said St Michael and All Angels Church. Many of the Mangochi Yao of Kapani succumbed to the pressure of the Christian influence and they became Christians such as Chief Machinjiri, Kuntumangia and others. One of the alleged objectives of the missionaries was to end the slave trade in Malawi that continued until the end of the 19th century. However, the hidden intention of Livingstone was to colonize central Africa. This was achieved through the influence of the Church and later on the defeat of powerful Yao and Angoni chiefs in the 1890s. In 1878, a number of traders, mostly from Glasgow, formed the African Lakes Company to supply goods and services to the missionaries. Other missionaries, traders, hunters, and planters soon followed. Before the established Church of Scotland established a mission among the Yao of Kapani 1876, another Scottish group of the Free Church of Scotland had secured land from the Machinga Yao chief Mpanda and Mangochi. In 1875 Chief Mpanda gave land to Robert Lawes. As a result, Lawes opened a mission among the Islamized Yao and Mangochi. The mission station survived in the first years because food was plentiful in the Mpanda and Makanjila areas. The chiefs of the said areas practiced commercial farming. However, the missionaries for six years failed to convert the Machinga Yao. However, Mangochi Yao of Upper Shire such those found in Zamba and Blantyre embraced Christianity. In 1889 the Catholic White Fathers also aimed to convert the Yao of Mpanda and Mangochi. Chief Mpanda gave them land to open a mission station. The influence of the Catholics has been strong since 1889. The Church had been trying its best to Christianize the Yao by building schools and a clinic every four kilometers in Mangochi. At present the Church has Radio Maria, a major seminary and the university in the district. 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. 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 December 31, 1963. In January 1915, John Chillingway, a millenarian pastor in southeastern Nyasaland, led an unsuccessful revolt, known as the Chillingway Uprising, against British rule. Chillingway opposed the recruitment of Nyases in the British Army's campaign in East Africa, as well as the system of colonial rule. Chillingway's followers attacked local plantations, but were soon defeated by British forces. Chillingway was killed, and many of his followers were executed. In 1944, the Nyasaland African Congress, 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 in southern Rhodesia and Lusaka, in northern Rhodesia. Thousands of Nyasalanders fought in the Second World War In July 1958, Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Bonda 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. In 1959, Bonda was sent to Gwelo Prison for his political activities but was released in 1960 to participate in a constitutional conference in Mundun. In August 1961, the MCP won an overwhelming victory in an election for a new Legislative Council. It also gained an important role in the new Executive Council and ruled Nyasaland in all but name a year later. In a second constitutional conference in Lundun in November 1962, the British government agreed to give Nyasaland self-governing status the following year. Hastings Bonda became Prime Minister on February 1, 1963, although the British still controlled the country's financial, security, and judicial systems. A new constitution took effect in May 1963, providing for virtually complete internal self-government. Independence Malawi became a fully independent member of the Commonwealth on July 6, 1964. Shortly after, in August and September 1964, Bonda faced dissent from most of his Cabinet Ministers in the Cabinet Crisis of 1964. The Cabinet Crisis began with a confrontation between Bonda, the Prime Minister, and all the Cabinet Ministers present on August 26, 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. The reasons that the ex-Ministers put forward for the confrontation and their subsequent resignations were the autocratic attitude of Bonda, who failed to consult other Ministers and kept power in his own hands, his insistence on maintaining diplomatic relations with South Africa and Portugal and a number of domestic austerity measures. After continuing unrest and some clashes between their supporters and those of Bonda, most of the ex-Ministers left Malawi in October. One ex-Minister, Henri Chippembere led a small, unsuccessful armed uprising in February 1965. After its failure, he arranged for his transfer to the USA. Another ex-Minister, Yacheta Kishiza, organised an even smaller incursion from Mozambique in 1967, in which he was killed. Several of the former Ministers died in exile or, in the case of Orden Chirwa in a Malawian jail, but some survived to return to Malawi after Bonda was deposed in 1993, and resumed public life. Two years later, Malawi adopted a Republican constitution and became a one-party state with Hastings Bonda as its first President. One-Party Rule In 1970, Hastings Bonda was declared President for Life of the MCP, and in 1971 Bonda 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. Bonda, who was always referred to as His Excellency the Life President Wazi Dr. H. Kamuzu Bonda, was a dictator. Allegiance to him was enforced at every level. Every business building was required to have an official picture of Bonda 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. At the cinemas, a video of His Excellency waving to his subjects was shown while the anthem played. When Bonda visited a city, a contingent of women was expected to greet him at the airport and dance for him. A special cloth, bearing the President's picture, was the required attire for these performances. The one radio station in the country aired the President's speeches and government propaganda. People were ordered from their homes by police, and told to lock all windows and doors, at least an hour prior to President Bonda passing by. Everyone was expected to wave. Among the laws enforced by Bonda, it was illegal for women to wear see-through clothes, pants of any kind or skirts which showed any part of the knee. There were two exceptions to this, if they were at a country club and if they were at a holiday resort-slash-hotel, which meant that with the exception of the resort-slash-hotel staff they were not seen by the general populace. Men were not allowed to have hair below the collar. When men whose hair was too long arrived in the country from overseas, they were given a haircut before they could leave the airport. Churches had to be government-sanctioned. Members of certain religious groups, such as Jehovah's Witnesses, were persecuted and forced to leave the country at one time. All Malawian citizens of Indian heritage were forced to leave their homes and businesses and move into designated Indian areas in the larger cities. At one time, they were all told to leave the country, then hand-picked ones were allowed to return. It was illegal to transfer or take privately earned funds out of the country unless approved through proper channels. Proof had to be supplied to show that one had already brought in the equivalent or more in foreign currency in the past. When some left, they gave up goods and earnings. All movies shown in theatres were first viewed by the Malawi Censorship Board. Content considered unsuitable, particularly nudity or political content, was edited. Mail was also monitored by the Censorship Board. Some overseas mail was opened, read, and sometimes edited. Videotapes had to be sent to the Censorship Board to be viewed by censors. Once edited, the movie was given a sticker stating that it was now suitable for viewing, and sent back to the owner. Telephone calls were monitored and disconnected if the conversation was politically critical. Items to be sold in bookstores were also edited. Pages, or parts of pages, were cut out or blacked out of magazines such as Newsweek and Time. 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. He owned houses, businesses, private helicopters, cars and other such luxuries. 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. Multiparty 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 multiparty democracy or the continuation of a one-party state. On June 14, 1993, the people of Malawi voted overwhelmingly in favor of multiparty democracy. Free and fair national elections were held on May 17, 1994 under a provisional constitution, which took full effect the following year. Vakili Mulusi, leader of the United Democratic Front, 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. That coalition disbanded in June 1996, but some of its members remained in the government. The president was referred to as Dr. Mulusi, having received an honorary degree at Lincoln University in Missouri in 1995. Malawi's newly written constitution eliminated special powers previously reserved for the Malawi Congress Party. Accelerated economic liberalization and structural reform accompanied the political transition. On June 15, 1999, Malawi held its second democratic elections. Vakili Mulusi was re-elected to serve a second five-year term as president, despite an MCP-affirmed alliance that ran a joint slate against the UDF. The aftermath of elections brought the country to the brink of civil strife. Disgruntled Tumbuka, Ngoni and Kand Christian tribes dominant in the north were irritated by the election of Vakili Mulusi, a Muslim from the south. Conflict arose between Christians and Muslims of the Yao tribe. Property valued at over millions of dollars was either vandalized or stolen and 200 mosques were torched down. Malawi in the 21st Century In 2001, the UDF held 96 seats in the National Assembly, while the AFFIRD held 30, and the MCP 61. Six seats were held by independents who represent the National Democratic Alliance opposition group. The NDA was not recognized as an official political party at that time. The National Assembly had 193 members, of whom 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 Binguwa Muthrika defeated MCP candidate John Tembo and Gawanda Chakoamba, 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. Binguwa Muthrika left the UDF party on February 5, 2005 citing differences with the UDF, particularly over his anti-corruption campaign. He won a second term outright in the 2009 election as the head of a newly founded party, the Democratic Progressive Party. In April 2012, Muthrika died of a heart attack, the presidential title was taken over by Vice President Joyce Banda. In 2014 Malawian general election Joyce Banda lost and was replaced by Peter Muthrika, the brother of ex-president Muthrika. In 2019 Malawian general election president Peter Muthrika got narrow election victory and he was re-elected. In February 2020 Malawi constitutional court overturned the result because of irregularities and widespread fraud. In May 2020 Malawi Supreme Court upheld the decision and announced a new election will be held on July 2. This was the first time election was legally challenged. Opposition leader Lazarus Chakwera won 2020 Malawian presidential election and he was sworn in as the new president of Malawi.