Bingu wa Mutharika: Leading man?
By Raphael Tenthani
BBC News, Blantyre

Malawian President Bingu wa Mutharika faces the political test of his life on Tuesday 19 May.

When he ditched the United Democratic Front (UDF), the party whose leader Bakili Muluzi ironically anointed him successor, people did not give the president a chance.

His newly found Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) paled at the strength of the combined opposition in the just-dissolved parliament.

But Mr Mutharika has for five turbulent years weathered the storm.

Born Ryson Webster Thom in the tea-growing district of Thyolo some 75 years ago, the school master's son adopted the more African name Bingu wa Mutharika during the 1960s.

When founding father Hastings Kamuzu Banda came to power in 1964 after Malawi - then called Nyasaland - became independent, Mr Mutharika became the first Malawian administrator in the civil service, which was then still dominated by the British.

But during the so-called "cabinet crisis" in the same year, when some senior ministers rebelled against Dr Banda's traits of dictatorship, the man destined one day for the top job fled Malawi after rumours spread that the president believed he was in cahoots with the rebel ministers......

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