Banda, Hastings Kamuzu << BAN duh, HAYS tihngz kah MOO zoo >> (1898-1997), was the leader of Malawi from 1963 to 1993. He became prime minister in 1963 and led Malawi—then a British protectorate of Nyasaland—to independence in 1964. In 1966, the Malawi Congress Party became the country’s only legal political party. It declared Banda president that year. As president, Banda encouraged the development of agriculture, which kept many laborers from leaving the country to find work in neighboring lands. In 1970, a constitutional amendment made Banda president for life. In 1993, it was repealed, and Malawi’s people voted for a multiparty system. In 1994, Bakili Muluzi, leader of the United Democratic Front Party, defeated Banda in a multiparty election.
Banda was born in the Kasungu district of Nyasaland. While in his late teens, he went to study and work in South Africa. He went to the United States in 1923 and graduated from the University of Chicago in 1931. Banda received an M.D. degree from the Meharry Medical College in Nashville in 1937 and then practiced medicine in England and Ghana. In 1958, after living abroad for over 40 years, Banda returned to Nyasaland to lead his country’s independence movement. He died on Nov. 25, 1997.
