The “president of Tipp-Ex” or the long-awaited Savior of Malawi?

Only five years after being radically informed by a court decision, Peter Mutharika should return to power as president of Malawi.

Mutharika, who held the first job from 2014 to 2020, seems to have triumphed in the general elections last week, usurping his longtime rival, President Lazarus Chakwera.

Mutharika told voters on the campaign track that life was simply better under him – Malawi had one of his worst economic slowdowns since Chakwera took office.

But the 85 -year -old Mutharika’s file has his own imperfections, allegations of corruption to the debacle that ended his first presidency.

It was the fourth time he presented his duties, but at the beginning, Mutharika did not intend to get into politics.

Born in 1940 in the Thyolo tea region, he was raised by two teachers and developed a love for education.

“I grew up in a family where my parents were educators, and I spent all my life in higher education, in seven universities on three continents,” said Mutharika in 2017, during an address at the British University of Oxford.

He attended the secondary school in Dedza, an institution of the center of Malawi, known for having fueled notable politicians, and studied law in the 1960s at the prestigious University of Yale in the United States.

Mutharika became a professor, creating international justice expertise. He spent decades far from Malawi to teach in universities of the United States, Tanzania, Uganda and Ethiopia.

Mutharika finally pivoted in politics in 2004, when his older brother, Bingu, became president of Malawi.

Mutharika returned home to advise the new president and in 2009, he was elected deputy for the Progressive Democratic Party (DPP) in power.

He served in his brother’s office as Minister of Justice, Minister of Education and then Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Mutharika has put the summits of relatively peaceful power to the scale, but tensions emerged in 2010, in the midst of the information according to which Bingu was planning to appoint his brother as presidential candidate of the DPP for the 2014 elections.

“Each week, chiefs from all over the country are paraded on national television to sing praise of Peter Mutharika … Many audiences are scandalized, considering this blatant nepotism,” wrote Malawian journalist Francis Chuma in The Guardian.

But the succession plans were suddenly interrupted in April 2012.

At the age of 78, the president underwent cardiac arrest and died. Mutharika paid a brilliant tribute to the late leader during his funeral, describing him as “my brother, my friend and also my hero”.

With the vacant presidency, a power struggle ensued. The constitution of Malawi stipulated that if the head of state died in office, the vice-president takes over, but Bingu had fallen with his vice-president, Joyce Banda, on the controversial levels to install his brother.

The DPP had expelled Banda, who later formed a new party, the People’s Party (PP), but refused to resign from vice-president.

On the death of the president, his supporters tried to install Mutharika as leader of the Constitution, but ultimately Banda prevailed and became the first woman president of Malawi.

Mutharika was accused of betrayal after being accused of having been part of a plot to hide the death of his brother to give him time to maneuver to keep Banda out of the presidency.

He rejected accusations as frivolous and political motivation – and they were abandoned after being elected president in 2014, beating Banda and Chakwera with just over 36% of the vote.

Supporters of Mutharika say that its first passage in power has raised Malawi, indicating the billions of dollars in Chinese loans which he obtained in order to reorganize the country’s infrastructure.

Inflation also dropped considerably during Mutharika’s first mandate. When he succeeded Banda, the inflation rate was 24% percent – when he left, he had narrowed to figures.

But Mutharika’s mandate has also seen power failures, food shortages and more corruption scandals that have long tormented Malawian politics.

In 2018, the Malawi anti-corruption agency accused Mutharika of receiving a bribes from a contract of 2.8 billion Kwacha (1.6 million dollars; 1.2 million pounds sterling) to provide food to the police.

The Malawians went down to the street to protest, but he was then rid of any reprehensible act.

He regularly defended himself as a supporter of the fight against corruption and extravagance, telling the BBC in 2015 that he was “the only president in Africa who travels commercial”.

Although Mutharika resisted allegations of corruption, he ended up losing the presidency in one of the most dramatic moments in the political history of Malawi.

Mutharika ran for a second term in 2019 and after the voting count, he was declared winner.

However, the Constitutional Court then canceled the elections, claiming that there had been generalized falsification, in particular the use of the TIPP-Ex correction fluid on the results sheets. Commentators have qualified Mutharika mockingly as the president of “Tipp-Ex”.

The judges ordered a reassessment for 2020 and, surprisingly, Chakwera won with 59% of the votes.

Although Mutharika marked the new “unacceptable”, the Constitutional Court has acquired international renown for the safeguarding of democracy and refusing to be influenced by the presidential power.

He suggested that he would no longer present himself to his duties, but surprised a lot by entering this year’s presidential race, saying that his supporters wanted him to save the country of Chakwera.

Since Mutharika left office, inflation has climbed beyond 30%. Cyclone Freddy, a punitive drought, reducing foreign reserves and other factors have pushed many Malawians in extreme poverty.

During the campaign speeches this year, Mutharika asked the public in the local language of Chichewa: “Munandanda Eti? Mwakhaula Eti? (I miss you, right? You suffered, right?)”.

But Mutharika was rarely seen in public during the campaign, unlike Chakwera, which organized many rallies across Malawi.

Consequently, speculation on Mutharika’s health are widespread and there are questions to find out if it has endurance to lead Malawi again at the age of 85.

Anyway, the voters trusted him. He even triumphed in areas known to be Bastions of Chakwera, such as the capital, Lilongwe and Nkhotakota.

Although his political career has been hectic, Mutharika’s personal life is relatively silent. The AFP news agency describes it as “reserved” while Mail & Guardian of South Africa wrote that “friends say that he is a studious man, more comfortable with books than political rallies”.

Mutharika has three children from his first wife Christophine, who died in 1990. In June 2014, he married the former DPP parliamentarian, Gertrude Maseko.

The couple should return to the presidential residence, but this time, Mutharika’s jet will be much heavier.

Many Malawians have suffered, as Mutharika noted in his campaign speeches. Thus, once the dust of his unlikely return sets up, the nation will look, strongly, to see if it does good on its commitment to bring them back to better times.