“It can be done, play your part’’

The October 25th, 2015 presidential election in Tanzania was won by John Magufuli, the candidate of the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM). He scored 8,882,935 votes (58 %); a paltry score if compared with CCM’s presidential vote of 80.3 % in the2005 elections. The decline to 62.8% in 2010 followed public disenchantment with Jakaya Kikwete’s […]

The October 25th, 2015 presidential election in Tanzania was won by John Magufuli, the candidate of the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM). He scored 8,882,935 votes (58 %); a paltry score if compared with CCM’s presidential vote of 80.3 % in the2005 elections. The decline to 62.8% in 2010 followed public disenchantment with Jakaya Kikwete’s perceived betrayal of Mwalimu Nyerere’s record of abhorring corrupt leaders as stipulated by ‘’The ARUSHA  DECLARATION’’ of 1967.
Magufuli’s poor score is, however, a tribute to Nyerere’s initiative in 1965 when he appointed a commission to tour the country and tap popular opinion about reforming a colonial  British electoral tradition which enabled a candidate to be elected ‘’unopposed’’ if other ‘’nomination papers’’ were not submitted. It denied party supporters the experience of  casting their votes since Nyerere’s party, Tanganyika African National Union (TANU), was so universally popular that it was a desecration to contest against its candidate.
After the 1961 elections, it became clear that a democratic culture could not be built on members of parliament for whom no votes had been cast; an electorate which had not experienced the drama of candidates debating over public policies, and voters whose intellect and emotions had not boiled in the pot of electoral campaigns. A 1965 Presidential Commission invented the novel formula of a minimum of two and a maximum of three TANU’s candidates contesting in each constituency. The party organized campaign rallies in which all contestants appealed for votes at the same time and place. No private personal campaigns were allowed. Appeals to religion, race, ethnic loyalties; financial and material inducements, were prohibited.
The level of integrity and accountability of elected officials was so high that demands by Euro-American governments for a ‘’multi-party system’’, was widely rejected. Tanzanians detested the violence and corruption which marked multi-party politics in neighbouring Kenya and Uganda. The oppressive one-party systems in Malawi and Mobutu’s Zaire (now D.R. Congo), had shown that Tanzania had a system whose merits should be exported to other African countries; rather than be destroyed. After all, when after 24 years of rule, Mwalimu Nyerere voluntarily left office, millions of Tanzanians openly wept as he left the capital, Dar es Salaam, and it became clear that he had refused to bend to their appeals to continue in office.
David Nyaluke has suggested that Nyerere’s record of clean stewardship; a ‘’leadership that serves people and protects national interest’’, and a leadership that will lead Tanzania to higher levels of growth, development, national independence and pride, guided voters’ choices. Following ten-years of  President Mwinyi tenure, CCM scored only 61.8 per cent of the votes cast because corruption ‘’was highest’’ and “Tanzanians felt that the country had lost direction’’. When President Ben Mkapa took over in 1995 and fought corruption; increased tax collection from 28 to 40 billion shillings a month, and provided social services, CCM score rose to 71.7 per cent in the 2000 presidential elections. Service-based political and economic leadership won votes.
 Studies of American elections showed that in multi-party systems voters tend to build permanent devotions to parties, especially when linked to economic welfare of families. Swings are, however, possible when such interests are betrayed. John Pombe Magufuli’s score of 58 per cent is as significant as the 40 per cent scored by his opponent, Edward Lowassa. A score as high as 40 per cent by the Opposition parties aroused euphoric expectations and fuelled  Lowassa’s refusal to accept officially announced results; blaming low transparency by election officials. Accepting defeat has to be learnt.
More importantly, Lowassa’s garnering of 40 per cent of the votes despite his association in the public mind with corruption as the immediate Prime Minister in Kikwete’s corruption-ridden cabinet, underlined the depth of voter protest which sent as many as eight senior cabinet ministers into defeat in their parliamentary constituencies. Voter apathy and alienation from CCM had soared.
In a post-Cold War era marked by Euro-American and Russian disintegration of Ukraine; Euro-American induced civil war in South Sudan over fears of an impending election that would keep in power a regime friendly to China’s investments in the country, Jakaya Kikwete’s corrupt governance bred  a grave threat to Tanzania’s stability. Its generation and ballooning of public disgust gave foreign interests political petrol to set ablaze during and after elections.
The AU has abandoned ‘’NON-INTERFERENCE’’ in the internal affairs of member states, for the principle of ‘’NON-INDIFFERENCE’’ to bad governance. Yet, the AUC never sanctioned Kikwete. Governments of Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Angola, Namibia and South Africa – whose wars for freedom were anchored in Tanzania – should  hold annual  LIBERATION FESTIVALS in Dar es Salaam to affirm  that ‘VIRTUE GOVERNANCE’ can be done.