29 Facts About John Tembo

John Zenus Ungapake Tembo was a Malawian politician who served for years as President of the Malawi Congress Party.

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

John Tembo was replaced as President of the MCP in August 2013.

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

John Tembo's father, Zenus Ungapake Tembo, was a minister of the Church of Central African Presbyterian.

John Tembo attended several primary schools before graduating to Blantyre Secondary School.

John Tembo later went to study at the University of Roma in Lesotho, graduating in 1958 with a Bachelor of Arts in political philosophy.

John Tembo 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.

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

John 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.

John Tembo was the second Minister of Finance in Malawi after independence, succeeding Henry Phillips in a post for which the intended candidate had been Dunduzu Chisiza.

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.

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

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

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

In 1971, at the Dowa MCP Convention, John Tembo was the 'primary' sponsor for Banda becoming the 'Life President' of Malawi.

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

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

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

On 28 August 2007, John Tembo rejected an appeal from Chakuamba for John Tembo to become the running mate of Muluzi, the UDF's candidate, in the 2009 election.

John Tembo said that the MCP would have its own campaign and would not participate in a coalition.

On 1 November 2008, John Tembo was unanimously elected as the MCP's 2009 presidential candidate at the MCP National Convention held at the Natural Resources College in Lilongwe.

John Tembo was to face President Mutharika, who was running for a second term as the candidate of the newly formed Democratic Progressive Party.

John Tembo was considered the main opposition candidate, and the MCP formed an electoral alliance with Muluzi and the UDF prior to the election; the old foes came together with the goal of defeating Mutharika, their mutual enemy.

John Tembo was re-elected as the MP for Dedza South in the concurrent parliamentary election.

At a party convention held in August 2013, delegates overwhelmingly opposed, through a voice vote, changing the MCP's constitution to allow John Tembo to stand for a third term as MCP President.

John Tembo denied that the MCP delegates had been opposing him when they refused to change the party constitution, saying that he had previously expressed his wish to retire and that the delegates had therefore simply honored his wishes.

John Tembo is the father of Chimwemwe Dudu, John Jr, Thabo Themba, and Dalitso.

John Tembo died of pneumonia on 27 September 2023, at the age of 91.