Banda, Hastings Kamuzu

Banda, Hastings Kamuzu (b. 1902, Kasungu District, Nyasaland (Malawi); d. 25 Nov. 1997) Malawian; Prime Minister 1963–6, President 1966–94 Born to poor peasant parents of the Chewa ethnic group, Banda received a mission education and left home at the age of 12 to work in Rhodesia and South Africa. He saved enough to travel to the United States, where he received a first degree in political science and subsequently qualified as a medical doctor. He then moved to Scotland, where he gained British medical qualifications, and from 1945 to 1953 practised as a doctor in London. He then spent five years as a doctor in Ghana.

His political activities were aroused by opposition to the Central African Federation, which in 1953 federated Nyasaland (later to become Malawi) with white-ruled Southern Rhodesia. As a result, he was invited to lead the Nyasaland African Congress, which in 1960 became the Malawi Congress Party (MCP), and returned home in 1958 after an absence of over forty years. After outspoken attacks on federation, including a period in jail, he became Prime Minister, and achieved separate independence for Malawi in 1964.

An autocratic and deeply conservative individual, he quarrelled immediately after independence with the younger and more radical members of his party, whom he ousted from office with the support of the British Governor-General. He became President in 1966 and President for Life in 1971. Malawi under his rule was peaceful but severely repressed, and economic development was slow; a committed capitalist, he used his position to build a large private company of his own. Internationally, he expressed outspoken contempt for the African consensus, and in 1970 established full diplomatic relations with apartheid South Africa, earning continental odium but gaining substantial aid. In his later years he became senile, but retained office until international pressure coupled with domestic dissent forced the MCP to allow multi-party elections in May 1994. Banda lost, but though accused by the new government of the murder of political opponents, he was unfit to stand trial.