Recently Malawi has been overtaken by a president that is bent on morphing the democracy into a dictatorship. The president of Malawi is Bingu wa Mutharika. During Mutharika's first term as president he and Malawi were viewed as a light for democracy in Africa. This earned him a reelection for a second term. Witnesses say that after his second election Mutharika changed for the worse. One man that human rights activists say lost his life because of the new reign of Mutharika was Robert Chasowa. Last year Chasowa was found dead after committing suicide. The situation at first seemed to match a suicide until the autopsy report revealed that he had been struck on the back of the head and the suicide note appeared to be forged. Now rights defenders are claiming that he was murdered because he was a political activist. Many other scenarios support the idea that Malawi is in a trajectory towards dictatorship. Recently there has been proposals of laws that will allow the government to search without a warrant and close newspapers. Malawi is still a "democracy" that has papers that publicly oppose the government but it does not seem that it will last for long.
Malawi is a fine example of having a democracy does not mean it will always be a democracy. It is important that in America and other countries that have a democratic government that we keep a close watch on the powerful. It is very simple for the small group (1%) to take matters into their own hands. This is what is happening in Malawi. They let their guard down in the first election and now Mutharika has snuck up behind them. They are not different from America either. They have newspapers and political activists just like America. The opposers are not able to do anything because of the lack of support. It is important that democracies hold tightly to their core beliefs and never let their guard down. An interesting thing to note is that the economy has had a great effect on Malawi's situation. If you force the mass majority of the population into poverty then you can do with them what you desire.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/feb/15/malawi-africa-creeping-dictatorship?newsfeed=true
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