It looked like a council of the retired greats assembled
together to offer their innermost reflections on the performance of
their successor.
Although the meeting was held in
camera, it was thought from the snippets released by the convenor that
the grey-haired former leaders had not been brought together for the
sake of a cuppa tea.
They were surely come to give
their opinions on how the ship of state was sailing and what they
thought about its helmsman, President John Pombe Magufuli, and his style
of leadership.
So, who did Magufuli invite to this
conclave of heads of state present and past? There were presidents Ali
Hassan Mwinyi and Benjamin Mkapa, but the other retired president,
Jakaya Kikwete, was not among those who turned up, the unofficial
explanation being that he was out of the country.
In
addition to the former presidents, most of the top aides who served
under these heads of state were also in attendance – their prime
ministers, chief justices and Speakers of parliament.
It
was the very first time that such a consultation was held since
Magufuli assumed the presidency in late 2015, and the novelty of this
meeting was brought sharply home by the perceived reluctance of the
president to consult anybody whomsoever.
So tongues
began to wag. What was this meeting in aid of? Was the president anxious
to let the populace know that his illustrious predecessors were in his
corner? If so, in exactly what kind of trouble was he to make him feel
he needed these retirees to endorse him?
Was he now
feeling isolated and, like misery, in love with company? Or was it just
that he had a couple of questions over which he wanted to pick the
brains of those who went before him and who might have experienced the
same?
Nobody suggested that he had called his elders so that they could watch Russia 2018 together.
Fighting impossible wars
There is little doubt that President Magufuli sounds increasingly like an embattled man fighting seemingly impossible wars.
Just
before the conclave of presidents, he took the occasion of the
swearing-in of new ministers as a launch-pad for attacks on his party’s
MPs from the south who had criticised the government over the desultory
payments to cashew growers in their constituencies.
He
even suggested that he did not care if they all decamped from the ruling
party – because, he said, it would still have a big enough majority to
rule.
This may be the bravado of someone who does not
have too much political savvy, and who will soon expend his political
capital; maybe he has started seeing the signs of the nefarious effects
of this cavalier approach to governance, and maybe he needs the older
boys to bail him out.
I suspect the retired presidents and their teams will – because, basically, they have no alternative.
Though
he has largely ignored them, they know Magufuli is their creation, and
if he collapses, he takes them all down with him. They have to worry
about their own skins, after all.
Damning ecclesiastic letters
A
recent study by a reputable polling outfit, Twaweza, showed this week
that Magufuli’s popularity, put at 91 per cent two years ago, has
plummeted to 55 per cent, a slide that no other president since the
reintroduction of multiparty politics has registered.
That
will not please Magufuli, but he has other things to worry about,
especially the damning ecclesiastic letters of the Roman Catholic and
Lutheran churches around Easter that berated his regime as
anti-democratic, anti-free press and governing through fear.
The
churches deplored his muzzling of parliament, his closing down of
political spaces for political parties; the unexplained disappearances
of individuals and targeted attacks on opponents.
Though
state agents have attempted to water down these grim accusations, this
has done nothing to make the clerics recant their allegations, and this
must be extremely worrying for Magufuli. It is suggested that this is
why he must consult.
If he took this route in earnest
and tried to make life easier for people who do not agree with him, his
move would be more than welcome and he would get a lot of support from
various quarters. But he will have to go much farther than just meeting
with his predecessors. More thorough consultation is indicated.
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