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Malawi's 78-year-old President Peter Mutharika is a former law professor in Washington. He has won two successive election victories and a political career clouded by accusations of corruption and even treason.
He won his first term in a hotly contested election in 2014 – two years after the death of his older brother Bingu wa Mutharika, a victim of a heart attack while he was president.
Peter Mutharika was accused of attempting to conceal the death of his brother for nearly two days as part of a macabre attempt to prevent Joyce Banda, then vice president, from taking power.
As leader of the ruling Progressive Democratic Party (PDP), he, along with other senior officials, has been charged with treason for allegedly hiding the body, as well as leaders of mutiny and conspiracy to commit a crime.
The charges were withdrawn when Mutharika took office.
After this bizarre start, his first term was dominated by food shortages, corruption scandals, rising public debt, as well as concerns about his health.
A former law professor at the University of Washington, Mutharika is an expert in constitutional law who has served as Minister of Justice, Education, Science and Technology and Foreign Affairs.
He actively entered politics in Malawi in 2009 after being elected to parliament.
He became president after pledging to fight corruption after the "Cashgate" scandal in 2013, which revealed mbadive looting in state coffers by government officials, ruling party figures and officials. businessmen.
Mutharika himself was charged and last year was subjected to a public outcry. He reportedly received more than $ 200,000 from a businessman under investigation under a multi-million dollar contract to provide food to the Malawi police.
His weak victory in last week's elections was also tainted with allegations of fraud. Opposition parties claimed that the liquid corrector had been used to change the numbers on the vote count sheets.
Development sheet
Mutharika has a mixed economic record since 2014.
Growth has slowed from 5.7% to 4% a year, but inflation has dropped from 23% to less than 9%, according to IMF figures.
He has campaigned for his reputation for improving meager infrastructure and electricity supply in Malawi, a poor country, where the economy relies heavily on subsistence agriculture.
"You can see with your own eyes the developments that I have made across the country, let the work of my hands bear witness to me," he said during the election campaign, opening a new road.
Mutharika's office canceled some of his appearances in the campaign, provoking rumors that he was sick or even dead.
Recognized for his discreet leadership style, the president returned to the countryside with a rare show of zeal and asked his supporters at a rally: "Does it look like a dead man?"
A law graduate from the University of London and Yale, Mutharika left Malawi in the 1960s to settle in the United States.
He returned to the country in 1993 to help draft his first democratic constitution after the fall of the Hastings Banda dictatorship.
Mutharika returned to the United States but returned home in 2004 when his brother came to power as an informal adviser.
Widowed for 30 years, Mutharika has three children. In 1994, he married his second wife, Gertrude Maseko, a former MP.
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