John Tembo

John Zenus Ungapake Tembo (14 September 1932 – 27 September 2023) was a Malawian politician who served for years as President of the Malawi Congress Party (MCP).

Tembo comes from the Dedza District in central Malawi, and he was a teacher by profession.

Tembo was born in Dedza District, Central Region on 14 September 1932.

His father, Zenus Ungapake Tembo, was a minister of the Church of Central African Presbyterian (CCAP).

He attended several primary schools before graduating to Blantyre Secondary School.

He later went to study at the University of Roma (also known as Pius XII College) in Lesotho, graduating in 1958 with a Bachelor of Arts in political philosophy.

He had a brief stint as a teacher at Dedza Secondary School and later taught for two years at Robert Blake Secondary School in the central region district of Dowa in 1958.

Beginning in the 1960s he was an important politician in Malawi, and he was a key figure in the regime of Hastings Banda (1964–1994).

He has been variously described as "physically slight, ascetic, fastidious" and "cunning".

In 1960, two years after Dr. Banda's arrival in the country from Ghana to lead the independence struggle from British colonial rule, Tembo was invited to take up a parliamentary seat in Dedza South constituency.

Tembo was elected to the legislative assembly of Nyasaland in 1961, three years before the country gained its independence and became the Republic of Malawi.

He was the second Minister of Finance in Malawi after independence, succeeding Henry Phillips (later Sir Henry Phillips) in a post for which the intended candidate had been Dunduzu Chisiza (Chisiza died in 1962 in a car crash).

John Tembo was the only cabinet member not to resign in the notorious Cabinet Crisis of 1964, after which most of the President's closest lieutenants, their opposition to his policies thwarted, fled the country.

(Chinua Achebe in A Man of the People admits having used a real situation gleaned from the Hansards of a certain African country to portray his main character 'Chief Nanga', the heckler in parliament who hounded out the 'offensive minister' who had just resigned.)

When Malawi became a republic in 1966 after attaining independence in 1964, Tembo was appointed as Minister of Finance.

In 1971, at the Dowa MCP Convention, Tembo was the 'primary' sponsor (while another two seconded) for Banda becoming the 'Life President' of Malawi.

Banda rewarded him with postgraduate studies in central banking in Britain and France.

Later he was to use the knowledge as Governor of the Reserve Bank of Malawi, a post he held for 13 years.

As confidante to the President, Tembo was used as Dr. Banda's Machiavellian bludgeon during the later part of Dr. Banda's 30-year tyrannical rule.

Tembo came to personify the negatives that Dr. Banda did.

The greater majority in Malawi came to hate John Tembo for the excesses that ideally should have been aimed at Dr. Banda.

While most people became resigned to the 'life presidency' issue (wait until the old man departs), a determination, especially after the Mwanza Assassination, emerged that Tembo would 'never rule' Malawi.

Yet, in a move demonstrating Banda embraced 'democracy' much earlier than portrayed, Banda released John Tembo from his duties as Governor of the Reserve Bank and sent him on a two-year sabbatical to the US Congress to study the workings of democracy.

Tembo was prone to taking some unilateral decisions, e.g. the '1974 Youth Week Inauguration' venue saga when Tembo decided, without Banda's permission, to stage the event in Lilongwe to coincide with the 'New Capital City' inauguration gala Banda had yet to sanction.

Banda found this offensive and in the presence of Gwanda Chakuamba dressed down Tembo before instructing Chakuamba to rearrange, at a very high cost to the government, the Youth Week inauguration back in Blantyre.

Despite Cecilia Kadzamira's intervention, Banda proceeded to remove John Tembo from the National Celebrations Council and placed him into a minor post of Reserve Bank Governor and the ceremonial Chairman of the University Council.

The Banda-Tembo relationship soured and it became an uphill struggle, with Cecilia's active support, for Tembo to regain his position of prominence.

His role as the Chichewa interpreter to Banda was engineered so that John Tembo stayed in Banda's presence.

Cecilia engineered the removal as interpreter and subsequent demise in disgrace of the eloquent Chichewa speaking John Msonthi; whereupon on Msonthi's burial day a gun battle ensued between the Msonthi and Tembo/ Kadzamira clans.

And when John Tembo suggested, during one of Dr. Banda's speech on ubiquitous and 'invisible enemies', that ministers and those around the President should carry automatic weapons to 'defend' Dr. Banda, John Tembo was swiftly rapped on the wrist and a temporary replacement interpreter was arranged.

When John Tembo returned in 1989, Banda appointed him as Minister without Portfolio much to the furore and greater agitation for multiparty democracy.

With Banda's health failing Cecilia Tamanda Kadzamira turned more to Tembo to do her low-key political bidding.

In turn, John Tembo unleashed onto Malawians what Banda was to later call the 'parallel MCP'.

Sections of the Secret Service, Malawi Young Pioneers and other agencies, loyal to John Tembo, systematically incarcerated and/or summarily killed any vocal opposition to his rise to power while the educated, especially those without links to John Tembo's 'Dedza-Ntakataka Connection' were dispatched into exile.

Yet, the Machiavelli Dr. Banda did not fully relinquish power.

Given a choice between Tembo and Gwanda Chakuamba, Banda anointed Chakuamba as his running mate in Malawi's first multiparty elections, held on 17 May 1994.

In January 1995, some months after Banda lost the election to Bakili Muluzi of the United Democratic Front (UDF), Tembo and "Mama" were put on trial for the murder of the four prominent Malawi politicians in 1983 (the so-called Mwanza trial).

While there was little doubt that the four politicians had met their violent end (also allegedly in a "car crash") at the hands of state security forces, there was no direct evidence linking the accused to the murders and they were acquitted.

After Banda's death in 1997, Tembo attempted to take over the presidency of the Malawi Congress Party from Chakuamba and defied a high court injunction preventing him from holding a convention to do so.

He was replaced as President of the MCP in August 2013.