Politics
Doing business in Africa: An analysis of Malawi
Malawi, a landlocked country in Southeastern Africa that borders Zambia, Tanzania, and Mozambique, is one of the poorest in Africa. Colonized by the British in the late 19th century, the country was briefly united with other British possession in the area in the semi-independent Central African Federation until 1963 when it was dissolved as a prelude to independence in 1964.
Like many African countries, independence was followed by decades of authoritarian rule. In Malawi’s case its first president, Hastings Banda, consolidated power into a one-party state that was rigid and dictatorial even by African standards. In an African take on French King Louis XIV’s famous quip that “L’état, c’est moi,” Banda noted that when it came to Malawi, “Everything is my business. Everything. Anything I say is law…literally law.”
Luckily for Malawi, Banda’s stint as absolute monarch did not have absolutely terrible consequences. His line was generally pro-Western, some might say slavishly so, and he fiercely criticized anything smacking of African socialism. He even kept up relations with apartheid South Africa even as most of his neighbors were severing ties with Pretoria and assisting the African National Congress with money, weapons, sanctuary, and diplomatic support.
One downside of his reign, however, was the degree to which he inserted himself into nearly every business enterprise of consequence in the country. Combined with his close association with Malawi’s former colonial power he ironically demonstrated socialism’s main criticism of capitalist-led development in Africa: that the wealth and prosperity built by post-colonial African capitalism was merely just another form of colonialism, only this time more widely shared with local elites like Banda.
Still, under Banda, growth occurred and, rare in Africa, women’s rights and status were improved under his dictatorial rule. This, however, was not enough to save him from the general trend of democratization in Africa during the early 1990s. After enduring significant domestic and international pressure Banda allowed a full transition to multi-party democracy in 1993. This led to the election of Bakili Muluzi the following year: the country’s first democratically elected president.
Since then, Malawi has remained a multiparty democracy though not without problems. As is usually the case in newly democratic countries, political institutions are still weak and elections invariably see charges of fraud and vote-rigging levied against the winners. More disturbingly, ethnic politics seem to be growing stronger and continuing poverty and economic mismanagement led to riots in 2011 that were violently put down.
Currently, Malawi is governed by President Joyce Banda (no relation Malawi’s first president), who assumed office after the death the country’s third president, Bingu wa Mutharika, in 2012. While it is early days for Malawi’s first female president, Banda’s background as an educator, grassroots women’s rights activist, and her experience as minister of foreign affairs and then vice president of Malawi give hope for sound, stable, and wise democratic leadership going forward: a relative rarity in Africa.
