Tanzania: 'Pemba Methods' Rehearsal in Tarime for 2010 Poll

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The Citizen (Dar es Salaam)

OPINION
8 October 2008
Posted to the web 8 October 2008

Dr Azeveli Feza Lwaitama

On Sunday, October 12, voters in Tarime District of Musoma Region in northern Tanzania will go to the polls to fill the posts of Member of Parliament and local councillor.

The two posts fell vacant following the death in a car accident of maverick Chadema politician Zakayo Chacha Wangwe, who held them both.

News from Tarime on the election campaigns being conducted in that district has occasioned critical thinking on the part of those of us who wish to read between the lines on the methods that might be used by the dominant faction in CCM to win power for another five years in the 2010 elections.

The news from Tarime would appear to suggest that the faction calling the shots in CCM has decided to use the same methods the ruling party often uses to win some votes on Pemba Island, where it knows it gets a largely hostile reception.

The Tarime by-election is important to the Wanamtandao, as the CCM faction is popularly known.

It came to power in December 2005, on the political platform of presenting itself as the best placed to make CCM deliver the necessary changes that would result in the old guard being swept aside, the country being rid of grand corruption and red tape, and the vast majority of Tanzanians being given greater opportunities to realise a good life for all, with new speed, new vigour, and new steadfastness.

The CCM election manifesto on the basis of which this faction gained access to the hearts and minds of most of the voters in the 2005 General Election was pregnant with many promises meant to placate the desires of various interest groups, both secular and religious.

However, within the first two years of occupying the levers of state power, this faction has suffered many grand public relations disasters, including some of the key personalities being alleged to be perpetrators or accessories to acts of grand corruption of stupendous proportions. These include the Richmond, Buzwagi, and Bank of Tanzania's EPA account scams.

Earth-shaking resignations, including that of the first Prime Minister of the Fourth Phase Presidency, Mr Edward Lowassa, have been forced on the top leadership of the faction, which itself has suffered from some serious internal schisms.

A hostile political climate would seem to have begun to take shape, fuelled by a campaign against grand fraudsters and corrupt elements in the society, which was launched by the opposition party, Chadema, when it announced its List of Shame, dubbed, Orodha ya Mafisadi, last October at a public rally in Dar es Salaam.

Some key Chadema MPs such as Dr Wilbrod Slaa and Mr Zito Kabwe have begun to earn bipartisan national political support. The populist credentials of the Wanamtandao in CCM were being eroded.

News emanating from the Tarime by-election campaigns has naturally attracted media attention partly because of this growing lack of trust in the ability of the faction to deliver on its many promises. Critical thinking has focused on determining whether such lack of trust would translate into votes for opposition candidates in the 2010 General Election.

The Kiteto by-election victory by CCM a few months ago suggested that opposition party candidates could not automatically count on winning parliamentary seats previously held by CCM merely because of the said growing lack of trust.

The methods used in Pemba, including the massive deployment of large contingents of security forces, did sometimes manage to intimidate some voters, who would otherwise have been inclined to vote for opposition candidates to desist from doing so.

The Tarime by-election is, therefore, even more important to CCM, partly because it is the first by-election since the last General Election in 2005 to fill a seat previously held by an opposition MP.

If the CCM candidate wins this seat despite it having been held by a Chadema politician and the leading opposition candidate in this by-election being the chairman of the Tarime District Council, which suggests that most district councillors are from that party, then CCM can assure itself that the Pemba methods it will have used in Tarime will win it the 2010 elections.

Pemba methods would seem to consist of using the media and some maverick opposition politicians to divide their camp and succeed in presenting voters with the notion that opposition victory would lead to chaos and mayhem.

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