Muluzi reportedly plans for third term

A debate on whether Malawi’s President Bakili Muluzi should extend his rule to an unconstitutional third term threatens political stability, Reuters reported on Thursday. Muluzi and his supporters criss-crossed Malawi this month to address public rallies on “development issues”, but the only clear message was that Muluzi intends to stick in office beyond 2004, when his current and final five-year term in office ends.

“Muluzi will stand again in 2004 because people want him. We will change the constitution so Muluzi can stand,” Uladi Mussa, a senior member of Muluzi’s ruling United Democratic Front (UDF) and governor for the central region, told Reuters. Dumbo Lemani and Davis Kapito, two other UDF aides, said their party did not have a natural replacement for Muluzi, who ended the three-decade dictatorship of founding President Kamuzu Banda in 1994. They said it was generally accepted that Muluzi was the man to sew the party together.

A campaign for a third term could kill Malawi’s fledgling democracy and undermine any economic gains made since Muluzi came to power, Reuters quoted analysts as saying. Opposition politicians warn the campaign for a third term is also often accompanied by violence. A band of thugs calling themselves Young Democrats have reportedly intensified a terror campaign against anyone perceived to oppose a third term. The group has assaulted Muluzi’s critics in the precincts of parliament or outside and three people have so far died in the violence, according to police and opposition accounts.