Cape Town — Malawi faced a political crisis on Friday after President Bingu wa Mutharika suffered a heart attack in Lilongwe on Thursday, and was reported on Friday to have died.
Although there was no official announcement by 8 AM GMT, government sources told the BBC Mutharika had died and the broadcaster was reporting the news as confirmed. Earlier, Malawi media reports said he was either incapacitated or had died.
In the event of the president not being capable of discharging his duties, Malawi's constitution provides that the vice-president should serve out his term.
But the current vice-president, Joyce Banda, has been expelled from the ruling party, and media reports discussing the succession assume that Mutharika's cabinet would be unhappy at the prospect of her taking power.
After a day in which rumours swept the capital, Lilongwe - and one newspaper, the Malawi Democrat, carried an early report that Mutharika was dead - the government announced on Thursday night that he would be flown to South Africa for special treatment.
A radio station website, Zodiak Online, reported overnight that Lilongwe airport authorities ordered all staff to go home and cleared the airport for the president's evacuation. It said a South African plane arrived at about 7.10 pm, government vehicles arrived at the VIP section of the airport soon afterwards, then a convoy sped back to Lilongwe.
A BBC correspondent told the station's Network Africa programme early Friday that the plane had waited for about four hours before it finally took off for South Africa, just after midnight.
However, the independent Malawi newspaper, the Nyasa Times, is featuring an "exclusive" story Friday that Muthrarika is "reportedly dead" and that "the President's kitchen cabinet continues its aggressive ploy aimed at holding onto power at all costs."
Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters
Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox
The Times reported that some members of Mutharika's cabinet and ruling party officials held emergency talks at the home of energy minister Goodall Gondwe and "agreed to fly Mutharika to South Africa as a formality as they work on what to do next."
The paper said that "Mutharika has been flown to South Africa clinically dead." It quoted presidential spokesman Hetherwick Ntaba as saying Mutharika was "unwell" but responded to a question on his death with: "No comment."
Section 83(4) of the Malawi constitution says: "Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of President, the First Vice-President shall assume that office for the remainder of the term and shall appoint another person to serve as First Vice-President for the remainder of the term."
This report has been updated since first published to incorporate the BBC's report that Mutharika has died.
