Malewezi's lifelong career was as a public servant.
Education and family He was educated at Robert Blake Secondary School, popularly known as Kongwe in the Central region district of
Dowa, where he received his
Cambridge School Certificate. As a boy, he was called "Visanza", as Ntchisi is sometimes known (a derogatory name meaning rugs). His father was a schoolteacher. After having graduated with a
Bachelor's degree in Biology from
Columbia University in the United States in 1967, Malewezi started his public service life as a science teacher. He was married to Felista Chizalema, a
Spelman College graduate from 1967, who for many years was a secondary school maths teacher back in her native Malawi. On retirement she joined UNICEF
United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) until Malewezi's second year as vice president. The couple had four children, two sons and two daughters, and eight grandchildren. One of the sons is a London-based DJ and rapper,
Qabanisso, the Managing Director of
Abstrakbeatz, a magazine that promotes hip hop music. Malawezi spent much of his time as an activist on HIV and AIDS issues. He was a contributing editor to the book
Poverty, AIDS and hunger: Breaking the poverty trap in Malawi, published in 2006. According to
People's Daily, he was also working on a children's book,
Grasshoppers on the Moon, and a compilation of essays under the working title "Confessions of a Principal Secretary", where he chronicled his life as a civil servant under the Banda regime.
Career in politics Malewezi advanced from teacher to the position of headmaster and, in 1976, he became chief education officer. Before holding the sensitive post of secretary to the treasury, the chief government technical advisor on money matters, he also held posts as permanent secretary in various ministries, including education and health. In 1989, he was appointed secretary to the president and cabinet (SPC), becoming former President Ackim Kamunkhwala
Hastings Kamuzu Banda's advisor. Out of the government, he committed his time to private consultancy from the late 1980s to the early 1990s, advising the governments of
Tanzania,
Ghana and
Lesotho on education and public sector development. Around 1992, he joined a clandestine underground group of mainly former Banda protestors including
Elson Bakili Muluzi,
Aleke Kadonaphani Banda,
Edward Bwanali,
Finly Dumbo Lemani and journalist
Brown Mpinganjira. The underground pressure group later became the
United Democratic Front (UDF) under the tutelage of Bakili Muluzi, and dislodged Banda's Malawi Congress Party (MCP) from its 30-year hold on power, in Malawi's first multiparty elections in 1994. Malewezi was President Muluzi's deputy from 1994 to 2004. Having been sidelined by the ruling United Democratic Front (UDF) as the party's presidential candidate, Malewezi decided to quit the party on January 1, 2004. Malewezi was one of the high-profile figures of the United Democratic Front (UDF) to announce their resignation and openly criticise the party's Chairman for handpicking
Bingu wa Mutharika as its 2004 presidential candidate. He was one among the five candidates who contested the presidential election. Malewezi later joined forces with the opposition,
People's Progressive Movement, where he was elected vice president. He attempted to be elected the front runner for the
Mgwirizano (Unity) Coalition of seven opposition parties fighting to oust the Muluzi administration during the forthcoming general elections but the coalition chose veteran politician
Gwanda Chakuamba instead to lead the Mgwirizano Coalition in the presidential race. After the loss, Malewezi ran as an independent presidential candidate, promising to put the economy back on track and referring to his intelligence and undented background in the campaign. If he entered the race again as an independent, he would have run against economist Mutharika, who had former President Bakili Muluzi as his chief campaigner, Gwanda Chakuamba, the veteran politician who was marshaling the ticket for the
Mgwirizano Coalition of seven opposition parties, and
Brown Mpinganjira, the former senior minister and Muluzi's right-hand man. Another competitor was
John Tembo, the veteran who gained experience in politics with the help of the founder of Malawi, Hastings Kamuzu Banda.
Death Malawezi died on 17 April 2021, aged 77. ==Bibliography==