A Tale of Two Tanzanias: The Race to October 28th & The Fight for the Heart and Soul of the Country.
With the nomination of presidential candidates winding down, this election is increasingly shaping up to be a tale of two Tanzanias. On one hand you have supporters of CCM and President Magufuli who believe he has delivered on his key promises of 2015 which were to fight corruption and graft, instill discipline among civil servants and the political class, improve efficiency in the government and embark on grand projects which would stimulate the economy. On the other hand you have the opposition and their supporters who don’t deny that there has been development in the past five years but argue that material development have come at a cost of people development (maendeleo ya vitu Vs. maendeleo ya watu).
On the side of CCM you have President Magufuli seeking a second term and on the opposition side you have Tundu Lissu of Chadema and Bernard Membe of ACT looking to become the first leaders of the opposition to win the presidency. You also have Chadema and ACT working on building a grand coalition and fielding a single candidate for the presidency and below.
It will be very interesting to see how the opposition works out a grand coalition. You have Tundu Lissu who made it clear from his speech yesterday that the right opposition candidate should be one who has been tried and tested and has a history of fighting against CCM and its government. You also have Bernard Member who is a former spy and former minister under CCM whose presidential ambitions have been no secret since he lost the nomination to President Magufuli back in 2015. In my opinion the two main issues they need to iron out is who runs for president between Lissu and Membe, what is the role of the other who is not chosen to run and what message does the opposition parties role out for the campaign.
CCM clearly has a head start. They hold the power of the incumbency, boast a popular president and have come out of the nomination process with a clear message, Magufuli 5 Tena, which is to mean 5 more years of what they believe to be a very succesful first term for President Magufuli.
The onus to convince the Tanzanian electorate otherwise is now on the opposition. Let’s be fair, a majority of the public have supported moves made by the Magufuli administration including the dismisal of government employees with fake certificates, improved services at government offices and agencies and the removal of the Untouchable class which was a group of a few government officials and politicians who felt they were above the law.
Be mindful that I am separating between what the opposition and their supporters think of Magufuli and what the general public feels about Magufuli. I say this because it is obvious that CCM has a larger base and that is why the main opposition parties believe they need to unite in order to have a punchers chance come this October. That means they have to convince a majority of independent voters and a significant chunk of CCM supporters to side with them if they are to stand a chance this election cycle.
The main challenge the opposition faces in convincing independents to vote for them is the simple fact that the incumbent president has done a lot of what was in the opposition’s agenda back in 2015. Things like fighting corruption, facing up to powerful individuals, reviving ATCL, reducing wasteful spending, improving infrastructure, strengthening the railway were all items that were on the oppostions campaign manefesto back in 2015 and they are all items that President Magufuli has largely ticked off of his to do list. So for the opposition to now come and say all that is nothing because it is maendeleo ya vitu instead of maendeleo ya watu, will be a very hard sell.
The opposition also paint a skewed view of reality. You have one main opposition party telling you that we now live in a dystopian society where everything that could go wrong has gone wrong and you have the other main opposition party promising a utopian society where the day we wakeup with them at the helm everything will suddenly change for the better. A good exercise in philosophical pondering but not exactly the way you would want your leaders approaching governance.
Last but not least is the opposition’s one dimensional agenda which is remove CCM and everything will automatically change once we are in charge. Slogans and political rhetoric will not improve the lives of ordinary Tanzanians and no, you cannot simple just say, try us, CCM has had its turn. Government is not an experiment and governing is not a rehearsal. You must prove ready before being handed the burden of 60 million Tanzanian souls on your shoulders.
Thomas Joel Kibwana.
