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BLANTYRE. — Malawi’s Joyce Banda, under the cloud of a huge corruption scandal and a donors’ aid freeze, is fighting to hold on to the presidency in an election tomorrow in one of the closest races ever in the tiny southern African state. Voters will decide whether to stick with former vice president Banda who came to power after the death in office of president Bingu wa Mutharika two years ago.
Her bid to be elected president in her own right is overshadowed by a scandal involving the disappearance of US$30 million from the national coffers that rocked the dirt-poor country last year.
Banda, who had launched an anti-graft crusade, ordered the audit that revealed the theft – known as Cashgate – and charges have been brought against 68 ministers, civil servants and businesspeople.
Banda denies any personal involvement in the scandal, saying in fact Cashgate is her trump card and will not damage her performance at the polls.
“In fact that’s my greatest achievement,” she told reporters before her final campaign rally, adding that the graft had been going on before she came into office.
But her opponents charge that she and her supporters have syphoned off public money to fund her campaign and handouts to voters ahead of the May 20 presidential, parliamentary and municipal elections.
Donor nations which finance a large chunk of Malawi’s budget have pulled the plug on US$150 million in vital aid over the scandal.
It has also led to a heated presidential race that an Afrobarometer survey shows is too close to call. Although there are 12 hopefuls, the real contest is between Banda and three other candidates, including her predecessor’s brother, Peter Mutharika.
“We have never really had elections that are this close, that are really hard to call,” said Boniface Dulani, Afrobarometer coordinator in Malawi.
Malawi’s 64-year-old first woman leader could also face a backlash from voters over her efforts to reform the economy, which had earlier won international plaudits.
A campaign ad on state television MBC shows an old clip of IMF chief Christine Lagarde praising Banda as a mature leader fit to rule Malawi.
But her austerity reforms included a sharp devaluation of the kwacha currency which hit the poor hard in a country where nearly half of the 15 million citizens live on less than a dollar a day.
“A lot of economic measures that she has taken, that have been lauded by the international community in many respects, have eroded her domestic support,” said researcher Aditi Lalbahadur of the South African Institute of International Affairs. — AFP.
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