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The Epic Interactive Encyclopedia 1998
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Epic Interactive Encyclopedia, The - 1998 Edition (1998)(Epic Marketing).iso
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Malawi
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Country in SE Africa, bordered N and NE by
Tanzania, E, S and W by Mozambique, and W by
Zambia. government The 1966 constitution
provides for a president elected for a
five-year term, but was amended in 1971 to
make Hastings Banda president for life.
Malawi is a one-party state, all adults being
required to be members of the Malawi Congress
Party. The single-chamber legislature, the
national assembly, has 112 elected members,
and the president may appoint any number of
additional members. He also appoints a
cabinet whose members are directly
responsible to him. Hastings Banda's system
of personal, paternalistic rule has not been
seriously challenged in his 20 years of
office. There are at least three opposition
groups which operate from outside Malawi.
history During the 15th-19th centuries the
Malawi empire occupied roughly the southern
part of the region that makes up present-day
Malawi. The Portuguese, in the 17th century,
were the first Europeans to visit the area,
but Britain intervened to stop them from
annexing it and thereby linking the
Portuguese colonies of Angola and Mozambique.
The difficulty of the terrain, and the
warfare between the rival Yao and Ngoni
groups, long prevented penetration of the
region by outsiders, though David Livingstone
reached Lake Malawi in 1859. In 1891 Britain
annexed the country, making it the British
protectorate of Nyasaland from 1907. Between
1953 and 1964 it was part of the Federation
of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, which comprised
the territory that is now Zimbabwe, Zambia,
and Malawi. Dr Hastings Banda, through the
Malawi Congress Party, led a campaign for
independence and in 1963 the federation was
dissolved. Nyasaland became independent as
Malawi in 1964, and two years later became a
republic and a one-party state, with Banda as
its first president. He has governed his
country in a very individual way, tolerating
no opposition, and his foreign policies have
at times been rather idiosyncratic. He
astonished his black African colleagues in
1967 by officially recognizing the republic
of South Africa, and in 1971 became the first
African head of state to visit that country.
In 1976, however, he also recognized the
communist government in Angola. Banda keeps a
tight control over his government colleagues
and, as yet, no successor has emerged. In
1977 he embarked upon a policy of cautious
liberalism, releasing some political
detainees and allowing greater press freedom.
His external policies are based on a mixture
of national self-interest and practical
reality and have enabled Malawi to live in
reasonable harmony with its neighbours.