Tanzanian President Magufuli displays his certificate of victory in Dodoma on November 1, 2020. PHOTO | THE CITIZEN | NATION MEDIA GROUP
Promise made, promise kept? Soon after the elections that brought him to power in 2015, John Pombe Magufuli made a statement in which he promised to do away with the opposition in Tanzania by 2020.
Now, it is hard to say what that kind of statement might have meant, but my take is that he meant he was setting himself the task of reducing the political significance of formal opposition to next to nothing.
He has succeeded, most spectacularly in the just ended elections in which his party finds itself virtually in a single-party situation, having completely eclipsed the opposition. How did this happen?
Having set himself this goal, it must be said that Magufuli went about realizing it with assiduity. In short order, he banned political rallies and demonstrations, ordered his police to arrest, harass and prosecute opposition leaders, keeping them too busy defending themselves or getting themselves out of remand prison to do any meaningful political work.
His main mantra emphasised the need for work, work, and work. Just work, work, no time for politics, just work. And what work? Build roads, construct highways, railway lines, hydroelectric dams, and buy airplanes. For some people this was indeed impressive ‘development.’
CASUAL STROLL
On paper, therefore, one would have thought that five years down the line the back of the opposition would have been broken and Magufuli’s ruling party would have nothing more than a casual stroll during what would be merely symbolic elections in this year’s contest.
It was not to be. The main opposition party, Chadema, which had kept largely out of the spotlight, heeding Magufuli’s strictures, suddenly erupted into action only two months ago, apparently fired by Tundu Lissu, a fiery young attorney that someone had tried to kill three years ago. It was also clear that during the five or so years of relative obscurity Chadema had somehow built a strong popular base at the grassroots. As if from nowhere, CCM had a fight on its hands and at first did not seem to know how to react.
For reminders, Tundu Lissu was shot in broad daylight in a government compound in Dodoma while attending a parliamentary session three years ago, and none of his assailants, who pumped sixteen bullets into him, has been apprehended.
In a gruelling two months of campaigning, Lissu displayed rare energy, crisscrossing the country, addressing rally after rally, exhorting people to reject CCM and what he termed Magufuli’s ‘dictatorial rule’. The man with the limp seemed to draw huge crowds to rival the ones Magufuli pulled with the aid of pop stars who always performed at his rallies.
Lissu often claimed to have beaten CCM in the campaigns, but warned about underhand moves on the part of state agents who would employ dirty tactics at the last moment, including blocking opposition party agents at the voting, counting, tallying and announcing stages.
Indeed, it was during these stages that matters stared going very wrong, with reports of party agents being blocked, ballot boxes arriving at the polling centres full of marked papers, and so on. Despite these alleged irregularities, the electoral commission went on to declare Magufuli and CCM runaway winners of the election, totally removing the opposition from the political equation.
VETERAN POLITICIAN
In semi-autonomous Zanzibar, meanwhile, the contest was between CCM’s Hussein Mwinyi and ‘Maalim’ Seif, the veteran politician who has claimed electoral fraud against him since 1995, the situation was no different. In a situation fraught with tension, which was supervised by a heavy military presence, about ten people were allegedly shot dead by police, and Maalim’s two close assistants were reportedly beaten up so badly they were initially reported as having been killed.
In some opinions, this does not qualify to be called an election. From the get-go, the stage was set for it to be this way. Magufuli is an extremely transparent ruler in his special way. Twice or thrice he has stated that he was not ready to appoint officers in charge of the electoral process who would declare any opposition candidate a winner. His running mate, who is the sitting vice-president, recently told voters while campaigning that they could vote any way they wanted but her party would form the next government.
The background to all this has been that the numerous calls for a new constitution— which would allow for a new electoral order, including an independent electoral commission that would do justice to all the contestants— have received short shrift. It is a moot question whether in the prevailing circumstances it was wise for the opposition parties to try their luck, or whether they should have stayed away from the polls until their demands for reform were satisfied.
It is probable that the opposition had reckoned with the usual irregularities in the past, and which they thought they could contain.
What is certain is that they did not foresee the cavalier manner in which the enforcement of Magufuli’s intent would be achieved.
Ulimwengu is now on YouTube via jeneralionline tv. E-mail: jenerali@gmail.com
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