Confusion over reported death of Malawi president

LILONGWE- There was confusion in Malawi on Thursday after a website called the MalawiDemocrat.com reported that President Bingu wa Mutharika had died. It said the 78 year old died after doctors at Kamuzu Central Hospital failed to resuscitate him when he suffered a cardiac arrest earlier in the day.

Mutharika was taken to the hospital in the capital Thursday morning after he reportedly collapsed. “The President has died,” said a top government official who declined to be named but spoke to the website.

First Lady Callista and three of Mutharika’s four children were at the hospital with the President. Others were his brother Peter and State House Chief of Staff Edward Sawerengera. Health Minister Jean Kalirani and Police chief Peter Mukhito were also there.

There is however still confusion over whether Mutharika is still alive or not. A senior official told the Reuters news agency that President Bingu wa Mutharika was in a critical condition after suffering cardiac arrest and will be airlifted to South Africa for treatment.

“Government is flying him to South Africa later this evening,” said a senior minister who asked for anonymity. “The condition is very critical.”

According to the BBC, Mutharika initially received treatment in the intensive care unit of a clinic in the capital, Lilongwe, where several family and cabinet members gathered to be by his side. He collapsed during a meeting this morning, local newspaper the Nyasa Times reported.

Reuters quoted a hospital source as saying he was still unconscious. Under Malawi’s constitution, the vice president – currently Joyce Banda – must take over if the president is too ill to serve, according to the Nyasa Times.

That scenario would represent a “huge shake-up” in Malawian politics, said the BBC’s correspondent, since Mutharika expelled Banda from his party in 2010 after they dramatically fell out.

Wa Mutharika is a former World Bank official once heralded for his stewardship of a southern African country that is among the world’s poorest. In recent years, he has been accused of trampling on democratic rights. He first came to power in a 2004 election, and was overwhelmingly re-elected five years later.

This past Sunday Nigerian ‘prophet’ Temitope Balogun Joshua (TB Joshua) repeated his February prophecy that “the death of an old African president” is imminent. T.B Joshua, who leads the Synagogue Church of All Nations (Scoan), announced that an African leader would die within 60 days.

“God loves us, you should pray for one African head of state, when I say President… again the sickness that is likely to take life; sudden death, it could be sickness being in the body for a long time but God showed me the country and the place but I’m not here to say anything like that,” Joshua said in February.

On Sunday Joshua narrowed down the location by excluding West Africa.

“What I was saying is very close now. You want to hear more, and it is very, very close now. Whether you like it or not, this is what I’ve seen. Pray for a leader. Well, God showed me everything but I’m praying to see if this thing can be changed,” Joshua said, adding he would “not say anything more than that.”