Banda, Hastings Kamuzu (1905–1997)

Malawi politician, physician, and president (1966–94). He led his country's independence movement and was prime minister of Nyasaland (the former name of Malawi) from 1964. He became Malawi's first president in 1966 and was named president for life in 1971; his rule was authoritarian. Having bowed to opposition pressure and opened the way for a pluralist system, Banda stood in the first free presidential elections for 30 years in 1994, but was defeated by Bakili Muluzi. In January 1996 he and his former aide, John Tembo, were acquitted of the murders of three senior politicians and a lawyer in 1983.

At an early age Banda left Nyasaland for neighbouring Rhodesia, and then South Africa, where he worked in the gold mines. By 1925 he had saved enough money to buy a ticket to the USA to take up a scholarship at the Wilberforce Institute, Ohio. From there he went to Chicago University and then a medical college in Nashville, Tennessee, where he qualified as a doctor in 1937. To fulfil his ambition to practise in the UK he needed more qualifications, which he acquired in Edinburgh. He then went into general practice in the north of England and London until 1953; he subsequently established a practice on the Gold Coast (now Ghana).

In 1958 he returned to his native country and in the following year founded the Malawi Congress Party (MCP), to lead the fight for independence. The MCP was to become his personal political machine. He was arrested in Rhodesia for subversion and imprisoned for nearly a year before being deported to Nyasaland.

In October 1993 he underwent brain surgery, temporarily handing power to a presidential council. He announced his retirement from active politics in August 1994.