New twist in political drama

[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

LILONGWE- - It was a case of 'don't touch that dial' in Malawi this week: first former president Bakili Muluzi was arrested on corruption charges, then, just hours later, the director of the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB), Gustav Kaliwo, was fired.

A statement from the office of President Bingu wa Mutharika said Kaliwo was suspended on Thursday "for not following the right procedures"; Muluzi was called in to answer questions on the disappearance of US$9.5 million of donor money during his time in power.

Analysts said the brief detention of Muluzi, a long-standing adversary of Mutharika, not only embarrassed the president but was also badly timed, with the government struggling to get this year's budget passed in a hostile parliament.

"Government should have realised that this is not the right time to arrest Muluzi. I also feel that the ACB director might have acted on his own without informing the president about it. But it is also possible that government is using the ACB director as a scapegoat about the whole issue," said political scientist Boniface Dulani.

Muluzi's spokesperson, Sam Mpasu, castigated the government for bad faith over a promise not to arrest the former head of state on his return from Britain, where he had been recovering from back surgery.

Mpasu added that after this the government should not expect any cooperation from Muluzi's United Democratic Front (UDF), one of the largest parties in parliament. "The government is not cooperating with the opposition and, as a result, they should not expect anything good from it."

Parliament has been meeting for almost two months to pass the budget and has rejected several line items, including funding for the information and tourism ministry.

On state-owned radio and television last week Mutharika accused the leader of the Malawi Congress Party, John Tembo, and UDF leader in the National Assembly, George Ntafu, of trying to sabotage the budget.

Tembo, who heads the country's largest party, responded that the opposition was just doing its job by questioning "certain allocations".

According to the Malawi Economic Justice Network, an advocacy NGO, the delay in passing the budget could jeopardise Malawi's chances of having US$3 billion of foreign debt forgiven. Securing the write-off hinges on an International Monetary Fund team, due in the country to assess the government's performance under its Poverty Reduction strategy.