Rafiq Hajat


Rafiq Hajat is a prominent Malawian civil rights activist. He was born in Blantyre. He is the director for the Institute for Policy Interaction in Malawi.
He received a B.A. in political science at Saint Xavier College in India in 1975.

Career

Vice president of the country's chamber of commerce and industry, chairman of DEMAT, the Development of Malawian Traders' Trust, and also founding director of the Institute for Policy Interaction. He has worked at the Malawi Chamber of Commerce and Industry and has been a Board member with Small Enterprise Development Organisation of Malawi and the Development of Malawi Traders Trust

Political career

He was a member of the executive in the United Democratic Front

Activism

He is the founding director of the Institute for Policy Interaction and is the founder of Transparency International - Malawi Chapter. Hajat and Malawi Democratic Party president Kamlepo Kalua formed a Forum for the Defence of Democracy a pressure group on governance concerns under the Mutharika administration.
Hajat was one of the main civil society organizers of the July 20th Ultimatum and July 20th nationwide economic protests. This forced him to go into hiding for a few days, but later he continued to organize the subsequent protests.
On September 2, 2011, the offices of the IPI were burned whilst Hajat was traveling to Lilongwe.

Accolades