The late Malawian Vice President will be laid to rest on Monday in his home district of Ntcheu, located 180km south of Lilongwe.
Saulos Chilima, 51, along with eight others, including the ex-wife of a former Malawian President, perished when their twin-propeller aircraft crashed in a hilly, forested area during bad weather.
A state funeral service was held on Saturday, led by President Lazarus Chakwera, to honor the vice president.
Officials from Chilima’s United Transformation Movement party criticized the government’s response, highlighting the absence of a transponder on the plane, which they found alarming for an aircraft carrying high-ranking officials.
Chilima and Chakwera had a unique political partnership, having both run as opposition candidates in the 2019 presidential election. They challenged the results in court due to irregularities and won, leading to a rerun where they defeated the incumbent president. This marked the first instance in Africa where a court-overturned election led to the incumbent’s defeat.
Chilima had stated that Chakwera agreed to step down after his first term to allow him to run for president in the next election. However, Chakwera later announced his intention to run for reelection, causing friction between the two.
Chilima had recently faced corruption charges, accused of accepting money in exchange for influencing government procurement contracts for the armed forces and police. The charges were dropped last month, and he denied the allegations.
Chilima had just returned from an official visit to South Korea on Sunday. He was serving his second term as vice president, having previously held the position from 2014 to 2019 under former President Peter Mutharika.
The search for the plane involved an international effort. President Chakwera stated that the U.S., the U.K., Norway, and Israel provided assistance and specialized technology. The U.S. Embassy in Malawi offered the use of a Department of Defense C-12 aircraft. Malawi also sought help from neighboring Zambia and Tanzania.
Malawi, with a population of around 21 million, was ranked the fourth poorest nation in the world by the World Bank in 2019.
