Malawis nye præsident ommøblerer regeringen grundigt og forfremmer samtidig søn af tidl. præsident Bakili Muluzi, som havde nær tilknytning til Danmark, hvor han var på skoleophold.
Malawi’s new leader Joyce Banda has sacked her foreign minister, Peter Mutharika, the brother of the late president who recently died in office, BBC online reports Friday.
He had been anointed as heir-apparent for the 2014 elections when Bingu wa Mutharika was due to retire.
The dramatic cabinet reshuffle comes days after the burial of the former president at his farm on Monday.
Ms Banda had been vice-president since 2009 but later fell out with the president and became a fierce critic. She was forced to resign from his Democratic Progressive Party in 2010 when she refused to endorse his choice of Peter Mutharika to succeed him.
Other Mutharika loyalists were fired, but President Banda also made some surprise appointments. The son of former President Bakili Muluzi (1994-2004), Austin Atupele Muluzi, enters cabinet as the economic planning and development minister.
A presidential hopeful from his father’s former ruling United Democratic Front, he was drawing big crowds at opposition rallies this year and was arrested for inciting violence after political unrest in the main city of Lilongwe.
Lawyer and activist Ralph Kasambara, who was also detained by police recently – after making comments about Mr Mutharika’s dictatorial tendencies – has been given a cabinet position, too.
He becomes justice minister and attorney general – a post he held when Mr Mutharika first came to power in 2004.
