Where a multiparty state has only seen one party

October: Tanzania general election

In Tanzania, time seems to be moving too quickly for the country to catch up. Modernization has been uneven and exploited. Tanzania has benefited from the appearance of development and democratization without enjoying the reality of it.

The United Republic of Tanzania ostensibly became a multiparty state in the 1990s in order to comply with regulations set by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and other major international loan programs that provided aid to the country. But Tanzania has been ruled by the same party, the Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM), since 1977. We may claim to have adopted multi-party politics, but did we really? That is the question that we must answer in the upcoming presidential election.

Tanzania is a union of two formerly fully sovereign states: Tanganyika and Zanzibar.

Julius Kambarage Nyerere, the country’s first president, united the two in the 1960s, at the same time as he moved to make the country entirely independent from the British. Crafting this Tanzania required a consolidation of power: Tanganyika was led by the Tanganyika National Unity party (TANU), Nyerere’s party, but was a multi-party state. Nyerere decided to go along with the trend of the time of removing democratic features in favor of a single party, which would build a united nation and attempt to squelch any opposition that might stand in the way of this grand project.

Tanzania’s ruling party, CCM, is an outgrowth of TANU and the Zanzibari party, the Afro-Shirazi Party (ASP). It was founded in 1977 when the two parties merged. Our five presidents since independence, including the current incumbent, President John Pombe Magufuli, have all come from the CCM. Each of the last three presidents has served two five-year terms and handed the office to his successor, complying with our constitution’s two-term limit, while also keeping power firmly in the party.

Each administration has brought a particular approach to its in power, generally moving the country slowly toward economic ‘development’ – including the opening of markets to international trade, and compliance with international loan and watchdog organizations like the World Bank. But this development has in many cases done exactly what it is not supposed to do—it has come at the expense of political freedom: successive administrations have also brought with them sometimes regressive and not-so-slow consolidations of power, corruption in the civil service and private sector, growing class divisions (as measured by the Gini Co-efficient), and “First World Problems” like consumerism, lifestyle diseases and pollution. This accumulation has produced the socio-political environment that Tanzania enjoys now—both developing and regressive at the same time.

In Tanzania, the battle is not between easily definable political polarities as “left” and “right.” Our problems are much more fundamental. The coming presidential election is about whether we are going to continue to survive, and maybe even thrive, as a multi-cultural and vibrant democracy; or whether we will sink into the dreaded mire of the “failed state.”

At present there are at least three fairly active political parties that will potentially put up viable candidates for president this year. Chama Cha Demokrasia (CHADEMA) is a fiscally conservative party. It had a strong presidential candidate showing in the last election. ACT-Wazalendo (Alliance for Transparency and Change) is a Democratic Socialist party. It managed to win a seat in Parliament despite being a brand-new party led by a former young CHADEMA firebrand, Zitto Ruyagwa Kabwe. The largely Zanzibar-based party Civic United Front (CUF) is a center-liberal party whose top leadership has almost all moved to ACT-Wazalendo in the past few months. Other interesting parties that run with no expectation of winning include NCCR-Mageuzi (National Convention for Construction and Reform), a centrist, pro-social democracy party which partners with larger opposition parties, and CHAUMMA (Social Liberation Party) which largely exists because its leader, Hashim Rungwe, is resolutely testing the constitution’s commitment to supporting multi-partyism no matter how small the party.  These parties all have credible election manifestos and real ideologies.  But they are also in no small part (as unexpected alliances such as UKAWA, the Union for the Citizens’ constitution, demonstrate)  aiming simply to unseat the ruling CCM and prove that Tanzania is a truly democratic state.

The current administration finds Tanzania at a crossroads: We are beginning to see and feel the consequences of our outdated constitution,  written in 1977and not amended since . This malaise informs how the general elections of 2020 are developing both at the grassroots and at the highest levels. An attempt to write a new constitution – which would have introduced sweeping pro-democratic and pro-multiparty by amending existing legislation to actually support multi-partyism –was aborted in the end stages by the previous administration, leaving a sense of bad faith in some quarters. That constitution would have also curtailed the power of the president to rebalance the three branches of government and updated it to reflect the will of the people and the challenges and demands of modernity.

On paper, Tanzania appears to be a peaceful and prosperous democratic nation, a success story.

But despite the booming economy, the picture for most Tanzanian citizens is not so rosy. The growing economy has made it, once again, difficult  for normal citizens to make ends meet as the Bank of Tanzania reports economic growth but the prices of basic goods rise and income stagnates. The World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Bank of Tanzania are having not-so-quiet conversations about the country’s growth rates. Both of those institutions have- with the encouragement of local civil society organizations- placed limits on their loans to try to pressure the government of Tanzania to address human rights abuses: Most recently, activists were able to partner with the World Bank to withhold loans earmarked for the education sector when the president enforced a 2002 edict to expel pregnant students and forbid them from going back to normal formal public schooling. (This ban was later lifted after pressure.)

There are too many boots on the ground from police and paramilitary groups on the streets of a country famed for its laid-back attitude. Petty bribery is a part of everyday life; people in power use their positions to appropriate resources, including valuable land and government contracts. An interesting case is that of Richmond, where the US-registered Richmond Development Company was awarded an extremely expensive contract by the government that it could not fulfill and which resulted in the resignation in 2008 of the Prime Minister at the time, Edward Lowassa, over allegations that he was involved with the company.  

Misogynistic statements by leaders in the higher echelons have been recorded, such as when the incumbent president offhandedly suggested he would beat residents of cashew-growing regions of the country, as well as their aunts, over their refusal to hand over crops to the government. (I don’t think English has an adequate term for this level of insult. Maybe if Trump told his Vice President that he would bitch-slap his grandma?) Sexual health initiatives have been severely curtailed, and an emphasis has been placed on abstinence-only sex education.

The ruling party is fractured, and factions are fighting each other for power in public. The media is being harshly repressed—social media remains the go-to for free-ish dialogue, but self-censorship is strong. Artists and members of the intelligentsia are being co-opted by the regime; dissidence is discouraged; the range and richness of our public life is narrowing. Erick Kabendera, an independent journalist working in English, was jailed without bail on charges of economic treason. He was released afterwards in a clearly deteriorated state of health and has been quiet since then, possibly recovering from his ordeal.

Opposition leaders are being arrested and detained on a variety of charges in the lead up to June when official campaigning for the presidency starts. As it is, leaders of the CHADEMA party have been tried on a dozen counts including sedition. Godbless Lema, a CHADEMA party member in parliament, tweets about going in and out of custody so frequently that it is not news anymore. My Representative, the Hon. Halima Mdee, another CHADEMA member of parliament is recovering from a broken arm having been beaten when she went to receive fellow party members being released from prison.

Tanzania held local government elections in November of 2019. But the election occurred only on paper. In reality, most constituencies lost their opposition candidates when they were declared “unviable” for a very broad number of technicalities. Many citizens refused to vote because they believed there was no point. A friend signed up and tried to vote in the most recent local election, but was turned away by poll workers who told him that the candidate was already chosen and that there wasn’t really any voting going on. Radio news stories abounded in which members of the public told journalists that they simply were not even going to bother voting. In the end, CCM won the majority of local government positions almost unopposed. But it caused no conflict since the majority of voters chose to disengage. As I write this, I am still waiting for my local government to introduce itself to us officially and hold our first local government  meeting-and it is already May.  

So, what will November’s general elections look like? The answer is gaining clarity with every passing month. The current COVID-19 global pandemic is having a huge effect on Tanzania as our government’s response has been somewhat confusing, raising questions of whether we will hold the general elections this year or cancel them.

At present, the main focus is on the public response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Tanzania: specifically testing and reporting. While the government does report data in a public forum according to WHO guidelines, these numbers are often criticized for their accuracy and especially their infrequency. The president’s personal response to the pandemic has raised concern with a number of citizens who feel that more could be done. With time, more and more people are providing personal testimonies that suggest that the numbers of COVID-19 related deaths are an under-estimation, though this has not been proved by a formal study so far.

And while all of this is going on, a legislature in some disarray over how to conduct business during this pandemic has yet to confirm or deny whether the general elections will take place as planned, although all signs seem to suggest that they will do so. To date there has been no announcement of a cancellation, and the exercise to update the voter registration files was completed earlier this year. The only certainty that remains to Tanzania in these chaotic times is the age-old one of uncertainty. And as each day passes, we are getting better at deciding what to do about it.