“I fought corruption!” Chakwera denies being Malawi’s most corrupt president
Former Malawi President Lazarus Chakwera is facing a fresh storm of peddling lies after claiming that it was his fight against corruption and a series of natural disasters that led to his humiliating election defeat to President Peter Mutharika.
In a recent interview with AfricanNews, Chakwera insisted that he “paid the price” for fighting corruption, arguing that his loss was evidence of powerful forces pushing back against reforms that exposed wrongdoing.
“The fight I engaged in against corruption fought back,” he said. “I ended up being labelled as the most corrupt when in fact I was the one exposing corruption.”
Critics say these remarks are an attempt to rewrite history.
They point to a series of controversial decisions, including the arrest of Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) Director Martha Chizuma. Chizuma accused Chakwera of failing to support her efforts to pursue corrupt public officials and other business tycoons.
During his tenure, Chakwera also delayed appointing an ACB director for more than a year, a move critics argue created a safe haven for corruption to flourish under his watch.
His presidency was marred by a string of corruption scandals involving senior members of his administration, including close aides at State House. Some members of his family were also named in alleged corruption cases, further challenging his claim that he was committed in the fight against corruption.
In another high-profile case, then Vice President Saulos Chilima was arrested, though the charges were later discontinued. Chilima and several other government officials were named in an investigation by the United Kingdom’s National Crime Agency (NCA) over alleged kickbacks from a politically connected person facing corruption charges in both Malawi and the UK.
Despite this, Chakwera maintains that his administration was committed to fighting corruption from the outset, even as scandals engulfed his government, implicating not only close aides and friends but also cabinet ministers and members of his own family.
In the same interview, Chakwera defended his broader leadership record, saying his administration was constrained by major crises, including the COVID-19 pandemic, cyclones, and drought, which forced him to declare a state of national disaster in four of his five years in office.
“I faced a vicious cycle of trying to get up only to get knocked down again because in the five years that I was President, in four of those years I had to declare a state of national disaster of one form or another,” he said. “I emphasised agricultural productivity and commercialisation to move away from subsistence farming.”
Ironically, investigations suggest that key initiatives meant to commercialise agriculture, such as the Green Belt programme and public financing institutions like NEEF, were plagued by corruption, abuse and financial mismanagement.
Recent evidence shows that the Greenbelt Authority mandated to commercialise the country’s agriculture through Mega Farms became a conduit for corruption and the looting of public funds for political purposes. Billions of kwacha were allegedly diverted from the Greenbelt Authority to finance Malawi Congress Party (MCP) and Chakwera’s presidential re-election campaign. According to the ACB, more than K36 billion alone was lost in this manner.
Similarly, billions from the National Economic Empowerment Fund (NEEF) reportedly disappeared, with the ACB arresting politically connected businesspeople linked to the MCP over allegations that the funds were used to finance Chakwera’s own 2025 presidential campaign.
It remains unclear whether Chakwera was aware of the alleged misconduct within his administration. What is clear, however, is that the programme failed to deliver its intended outcomes while substantial public funds were disbursed into political pockets closely linked to Chakwera and the MCP.
Chakwera suffered a heavy electoral defeat to veteran politician Peter Mutharika, losing support across the country, including in Lilongwe, a long time MCP stronghold before last year’s elections. He is now leading the opposition MCP and is expected to seek another mandate in 2030, when he will be over 75 years old.
