Nineteen people were killed and 41 seriously injured after clashes with police and army units in the capital and other major cities such as Karonga and Mzuzu in the north and Blantyre in the south. Organisers have gone into hiding after President Bingu wa Mutharika accused them of “treason” and warned: “Enough is enough. If you go back on the streets, I will smoke you out.”
Rafiq Hajat, director of the Institute for Policy Interaction, said: “We are challenging a fundamental Malawian cultural perspective where you dare not challenge authority. We have done that. We have shaken the tree.”
Opposition groups organised the protests after accusing the president of plunging the country into crisis. They said he was turning Malawi into an “autocratic kleptocracy”. Mr Mutharika said he was prepared to enter into a dialogue with the opposition on condition they stop “sending your boys” out onto the streets.
Malawi, known as Nyasaland when a British colony, is a landlocked country bordered by Zambia, Tanzania and Mozambique. Dr Hastings Banda, president of the Nyasaland African Congress, led the nation to independence in 1964. He became first Prime Minister and then President for life and ruled the country until 1994. Malawi is one of the world’s poorest countries, with three-quarters of the population living on less than $1 a day.
