Battle of the Titans
Opposition parties have their best chance yet of unseating Tanzania’s ruling party
resident Jakaya Kikwete’s Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) party has dominated Tanzania’s political landscape since the country returned to multiparty politics in 1992, but next week’s elections may be the tightest the party has yet contested. Four opposition parties have formed an electoral alliance.
In a triple whammy, on October 25, Tanzanians will vote in parliamentary and local representatives as well as a new president.
Though showmanship, grandstanding and melodrama have long been part of Tanzanian electoral tradition, it has been relatively stable over the past few decades. Now, a string of defections from CCM to the opposition alliance has upped the ante.
Unlike Pierre Nkurunziza in neighbouring Burundi, Kikwete has resisted the temptation to try for a third term as Tanzania’s president. However, he will remain party chair until 2018, and wants to retain CCM’s hitherto uncontested influence over parastatals and key ministries. In July, Tanzanians were startled by CCM’s choice of works minister John Magufuli as its presidential
Pcandidate. The original frontrunners were stalwart Edward Lowassa, who was prime minister during Kikwete’s first term, and foreign minister Bernard Membe, reputed to be Kikwete’s preferred nominee.
There is speculation that when the ruling party’s ethics committee eliminated Lowassa from the short list of candidates sent to the CCM national executive, Lowassa’s supporters voted against Membe in retaliation — a train of incidents that propelled Magufuli into serious contention for the presidency. Though he was not a political heavyweight prior to his nomination, Magufuli’s reputation as an honest and hardworking minister has aided his political transformation since August. Most analysts expect CCM to win, albeit by a smaller margin than previously.
Magufuli’s elevation catalysed Lowassa’s defection to the opposition Chadema, a partner in the Ukawa alliance between four opposition parties. Ukawa anointed Lowassa as its presidential contender. A month later, another former prime minister, Frederick Sumaye also defected to Chadema. Chadema’s chairman, Freeman Mbowe, notes that both former premiers left CCM disillusioned by its failure to deliver significant development and by alleged corruption within the governing elite. However, Lowassa has himself been implicated in graft allegations.
Though there are six other candidates, this is really a two-horse race between Magufuli and Lowassa, given Tanzania’s firstpast-the-post electoral system. They have spouted similar rhetoric on the campaign trail. Both men pledged to eradicate corruption, improve health care and education and alleviate poverty; and both called for peace and unity in semi-autonomous Zanzibar, always contentious in Tanzanian politics.
Wildly conflicting opinion polls have muddied the waters. CCM’s strong grassroots networks, dating back to the era of Julius Nyerere, and its appeal as the party of revolution may be the deciding factors. CCM’s web of patronage, based on its longstanding incumbency, cannot be discounted.
On the other hand, young voters will not blindly idolise CCM as previous generations did; many want a government that delivers on promises and is free of graft. Lowassa’s popularity, and the increasing zest for change among the young, urban middle class could swing the vote towards Ukawa.
Should that happen, the big question will be whether parties with such diversity of ideology will be able to sustain their electoral alliance into a governing coalition that actually works. Experiences in countries as diverse as Tunisia, Mauritius and Kenya suggest this will be challenging.
Some analysts, comparing Ukawa to Kenya’s 2002 Rainbow coalition, say Tanzania is ripe for a change of power. But the demonstrations that led to and supported the Kenyan coalition have, to date, been absent in Tanzania. Conversely, a suggestion that some political parties are training youth militias has raised sufficient alarm that the electoral commission is investigating.
Two factors that could, in combination, make a decisive last-minute difference to the elections are voter turnout and the use of social media such as WhatsApp, Twitter and YouTube. In 2010, fewer than half of eligible voters voted; this was at least partially responsible for CCM’s share of the vote dropping to 61% in 2010. The ability to mobilise voters despite creeping apathy could win the day for either side. Recent elections elsewhere have demonstrated the utility of social media in this regard.