Mutharika Bans Four Radio Stations

Southern Africa Report (Johannesburg)

21 July 2011

analysis

This week’s bloody suppression by President Bingu wa Mutharika’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) of protests in Malawi’s major cities was inevitable after months of maladministration, rocketing food prices, and chronic fuel and foreign currency shortages.

The ferocity of police reaction, in Blantyre, Lilongwe and Mzuzu in the north, is unprecedented for Malawi: Mzuzu hospital authorities reported seven protesters killed in police gunfire, and dozens of protesters and journalists injured – several seriously – by savage police beatings.

Police singled out journalists for assault.

As protests and looting continued sporadically in Lilongwe and Mzuzu on Thursday, Mutharika banned four private radio stations, Malawi’s primary source of information, using tough new anti-media powers.

His reaction is unlikely to still mounting discontent – fuelled by the introduction a month ago of 16,5% VAT on basic foods, chronic fuel shortages, and the virtual collapse of much of government activity following the cancellation of foreign aid which traditionally contributes 40% to Malawi’s national budget. Opposition formations are now pledging even more widespread protests on 17 August.

Mutharika’s actions this week almost certainly spell defeat for his DPP in elections in 2014, probably at the hands of his vice-president, Joyce Banda, who broke with the ruling party early this year to prepare her bid for the presidency after Mutharika attempted to force her resignation. The country’s trajectory for the three years until elections is unclear, although it continues to survive primarily through an extensive and relatively stable black economy (200 Malawi kwacha to the US dollar – against an official K150-US$1).

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