Tanzania General Election - October 25, 2015

[politicus]

Tanzania will be holding a GE on October 25 electing a new President after term limited Jakaya Kikwete, a National Assembly, the President of autonomous Zanzibar and the Zanzibar House of Representatives. The country has had an average GDP growth rate of 7% in the last decade, but far from everybody have benefitted.

The nominally Socialist "Party of the Revolution" Chama Cha Mapindizi (CCM) and its predecessors have ruled Tanzania since independence in  1961, but this time the UKAWA (Coalition of Defenders of the People’s Constitution) alliance between the two leading opposition parties and two smaller parties gives the opposition hope of ousting CCM. Most likely this will not happen, but they might lay the groundwork for an opposition victory in 2020.

There were supposed to be a referendum on constitutional changes prior to the election, but it was postponed and whether it will be held is uncertain (see the Tanzania Constitutional Referendum thread).


President:

Earlier this month Minister of Works John Magufuli (55) beat two female candidates with international experience (a former UN Deputy SG and the AU Ambassador to the US) by gaining 87.1% in the final round of the primary and became the CCM candidate, which makes him huge favourite to become the next President of Tanzania. Zanzibari Samia Suluhu Hassan (55) was chosen as VP candidate (as the first woman).

UKAWA has yet to find their candidate. Everyone else will be also-rans.


National Assembly:

239 seats will be elected using FPTP, 102 seats reserved for women will be allocated proportionally to the parties based on constituency seats won and distributed by their leadership, 10 chosen by the new President, 5 elected by the Zanzibar HoR and the AG is an ex officio member. It all adds up to 357.


President of Zanzibar:

Six candidates are running. Only the current President Ali Mohammed Shein (67) from CCM and former Chief Minister and current Vice President Seif Sharif Hamad (71)  from CUF have a chance. Hamad has run for CUF in all four previous elections. Shein beat him 50.1-49.1 last time and it will likely be close again.


Zanzibar House of Representatives:

50 seats will be allocated using FPTP, 20 seats for women distributed proportionally in the same manner used for the National  Assembly, 10 chosen by the President + a Speaker and the AG as ex offio member. The current balance is CCM 48, CUF 33 + the AG.

[politicus]

Parties:

Chama Cha Mapindizi (CCM)

The party pf power. Founded in 1977 as a merger between the two ruling parties in mainland Tanzania and Zanzibar. Nominally Socialist, but gone pro-business/neoliberal as most former ruling parties in Socialist one-party states. Accepted multi-party system in 1992 and free elections in 1995.


UKAWA:

Big parties

Chadema (Party for Democracy and Progress), Conservative, pro-business and focused on good governance and democratization, represents the urban middle class on the mainland and has growing support among young people.

Civic United Front (CUF), the only opposition party with any strength on Zanzibar, nominally Liberal, but as all "Liberal" parties in Africa this is a bit fictional. Populist is more like it. Founded in 1993 as a merger of the KAMAHURU democracy movement on Zanzibar and a civil rights organization on the mainland, but with negligible support outside Zanzibar.


Small parties

NCCR-Mageuzi is a small Social Democratic party that grew out of a citizens group working for constitutional reform in the early 90s.

National League for Democracy, a micro-party descended from a citizens group and focused on democratization and human rights.


Others:

Tanzania Labour Party, a small leftist party with one seat in parliament.

Alliance for Change and Transparency (ACT), a populist and Socialist party founded last year by charismatic Zitto Kabwe (39) and aiming to restore the founding father Julius Nyeres African Socialist Ujaama policy, although without nationalizations and one party rule. Especially focused on letting ordinary Tanzanians benefit from mining rights. Kabwe is ex-Chadema and his sudden conversion to Socialism is a bit dubious. Since you need to be 40 to run for President Kabwe is ineligible.

United Democratic Party (UDP), a nominally Liberal micro-party. It's leader John Momose Cheyo has represented Bariadi East since 2005.

Tanzania has plenty of other micro parties, but none of the others are likely to enter parliament. ACT is the only third party that might have a chance of getting more than a couple of seats.

[politicus]

UKAWA faces the problem that electoral alliances are not legal under Tanzanian law, so a party can't officially support another party's candidate for parliament and President (but can of course choose not to field candidates in constiuencies where their unofficial partners run). They also can't run a presidential and vice presidential candidate from two different parties on the same ticket, so it will be winner takes it all.
One solution would be to de-register all four parties and form a new one, but this seems hard to agree on.

[politicus]

Al Jazeera on black magic and politics:

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2015/07/brutal-black-magic-tanzania-election-150720073105627.html

For some Tanzanian pols their witchdoctor is more important than their spindoctor..

[politicus]

Former PM (2005-08) Edward Lowassa (61) has joined the opposition. Lowassa was the favourite to become CCMs presidential candidate, but was surprisingly eliminated before the final two rounds. He has been declared the Chadema candidate and is expected to be nominated as UKAWA candidate at a ceremony next week. He has build up a strong network and if it follows him this is a clear strengthening of the opposition.

Not necessarily good news, though. Lowasa had to leave because of fraud and was nicknamed Lo-Ruswa (Ruswa being Swahili for bribe).

Former Deputy Minister for Lands and Human Settlements Development and current MP for Arumeru West for CCM Goodluck Ole Medeye has also joined Chadema, who says they expect more defections from CCM to follow.

[politicus]

Lowassa has a BA in education and a brief stint in the army (participated in the removal of Idi Amin), but is basically a career politician. He has tried to become President ever since 1995, when Nyerere personally blocked him. In 2005 he secured his close ally Jaya Kikwete the nomination and became PM as reward, but had to resign in 2008 over a corruption scandal (involving a US company).

He is running on a platform of reforming the country's education sector, reducing poverty, boosting economic growth and - ironically - fighting corruption.

[politicus]

A couple of CCM bigwigs have been defeated in the Zanzibar primaries:

Dr Mahadhi Juma Maalim, who is Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation and Pereira Ame Silima, the Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs are both out. Both were deemed likely to be promoted to cabinet positions.

Also: The CCM leadership says that primary winners who have engaged in corrupt practices will be pruned to pave way for 'clean' comrades. This could lead to a bit of a massacre.

[politicus]

The entrance of Edward Lowassa, whom the party had previously vilified as a corrupt CCM apparatchik, has already had some consequences in Chadema.

A number of Chadema leaders, uncomfortable with the "strange-bedfellows situation" have decided to quit. These included the party's SG and last election's  presidential candidate Wilbroad Slaa (one of the best Tanzanian pols, so a shame).

The Chadema leadership now says Lowassa is a decent man and blame it all on CCM, whose institutions are "so corrupt that if you got the saintliest angel from heaven and put him in CCM for a week you would go back to find he has become a thief'. According to Chadema chairman Freeman Mbowe.

Lowassas own version of the "Richmond scandal", over which he resigned as prime minister eight years ago, is that everything he did was sanctioned by President Jakaya Kikwete and that even when he wanted the negotiations terminated his boss told him to continue!

(so a classic "I was only following orders" defence)

Ukawa was formed during the attempts to write a new constitution - which President Kikwete started and then sabotage - and they have insisted Lowassa enacts the Warioba Draft if he is elected. So this is in reality also the constitutional referendum that was postponed indefinitely

CCM has name recognition, incumbency and a network in even the remotest village. Plus control of the security forces - which will hopefully not be too much of a factor.

Ukawa has the cities and major towns and a lot of young people tired of having no options despite a growing economy + Lowassas sizeable network.

Could be close now.

[politicus]

Civic United Front (CUF) National Chairman, Professor Ibrahim Lipumba, has resigned as one of the four co-leaders of UKAWA in protest of the embrace of Lowassa.

Lipumba has accused the other co-leaders of the coalition of:

"Deviating from its original principles and embracing people who were a few months ago fiercely opposed to the alliance."

CUF is still in UKAWA. If they back out it is basically just Chadema + change without much basis in Zanzibar.

[politicus]

Lowassa was officially chosen as UKAWA candidate last week and filed the registration papers on Monday.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

We may need a new African election observer, but this is HAPPENING and the international media are hyping up an opposition win.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2015/10/tanzania-tense-close-call-election-151022063205827.html

The status of Zanzibar is perhaps the most interesting change that may come (I expect in practice UFAWKA will be no different from the post-Nyerere CCM.

[Simfan34]

An opposition win? But that's impossible!

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Yes, well I should be emphasising the media are hyping it. A lot of talk of "the youthful generation" and the like.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

There seems to be some confusion around the election. Many Tanzanians do not know what day the election is being held, many don't know that the opposition coalition isn't a party (so it won't appear on their ballots, just the constituent parties will appear).

Issues raised from public are based more on key needs like Health, Water and education; as opposed to last time round where less concrete issues like Governance, Corruption and Economics were flagged up.

It's widely expected that (contrary to the international media's hype) Lowessa will lose, but if he can put in a decent performance he could reshape the legislature.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

In a SHOCKING UPSET the government ... won. Yes, I know, crazy. Anyway there was a big swing against them, causing eight ministers to lose their job (and the Mayor of economic hub Dar es Salaam gone as well).

Results from Zanzibar have been annulled following widespread polling place invasions and Lowessa is crying foul.

[Simfan34]

I'm not sure how much this election was or was not driven by ethnic differences, so it's hard to analyse the results when you're not really sure what they actually mean. The CCM has maintained a policy of rotating between Muslim and Christian candidates ever since Nyerere left office, so both Magafuli and Lowassa were Christians with Zanzibari running mates. It's said that public opinion in Zanzibar is  increasingly discontent with the present constitutional arrangement and want more autonomy, so that could benefit the opposition, but that's just speculation.

But the actual result of the presidential election hasn't actually been announced yet, right? I suspect that Magafuli will win; aside from the advantages politicus (RIP) described earlier, the economy has been doing rather well in recent years, and poverty has been falling. Lowassa's attempt to position himself as the "candidate of change" is probably not going to work, when you're a scandal-plagued ex-minister, such things tend to ring hollow. Also, the fact that the opposition coalition doesn't seem to have fully embraced his candidacy would work against his chances of winning.

Even if the CCM wins, this election will likely cement Tanzania as one of Africa's more democratic countries. I wish politicus was here though. I don't know how she manages to know as much about these things as she does. Where does she find the time?

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

The question is whether the nullified vote (and rerun) in Zanzibar will be enough to declare the entire election invalid. Observers are saying the mainland elections are fairly fair and of course CCM don't want to push their luck, but Tanzania likes being seen as stable (unlike its neighbours and its wayward island autonomous state) and does not want to have embarrassing scenes of election protests and international finger-wagging from the UN and Obama.

[Famous Mortimer]

I think the opposition might have won if they didn't have such a horrible candidate. They'll probably win next time the seat is open, if not sooner.

Also, what happened to politicus?

[Türkisblau]

Also, what happened to politicus?

The fascist overlords of Atlas banned her, of course. Register on darkatlas.us to check out her posts

[Simfan34]

The question is whether the nullified vote (and rerun) in Zanzibar will be enough to declare the entire election invalid. Observers are saying the mainland elections are fairly fair and of course CCM don't want to push their luck, but Tanzania likes being seen as stable (unlike its neighbours and its wayward island autonomous state) and does not want to have embarrassing scenes of election protests and international finger-wagging from the UN and Obama.

I would think that voiding an entire general election would prove to be just as embarrassing, though, if not more so. It would be tantamount to admitting that there were severe irregularities, and that is not a message anyone wants to send, particularly when it's not actually true, which would appear to be case with this election. Whatever gains the CCM could possibly make in a do-over election would almost certainly be far exceeded by the reputational costs of appearing to acknowledge rigging the election-- which would probably result in them doing worse than before, now that I think about it.

Provided that the international community and media are able to recognize that, even in the developing world, dominant parties can win elections without needing to rig them, and that anti-government protesters are not always right (which may admittedly be asking too much of the media and many NGO types), the government will likely be able to handle opposition protests without running into too much trouble.

I simply can't see hundreds of thousands taking to the streets of Dar es Salaam in support of Lowassa being a sore loser. Like I said before, the enthusiasm doesn't appear to be there. Again, though, things could be very different if there is an ethnic aspect to all this that I have missed. If there is, there's no telling how nasty things could get-- the severity of the violence in Kenya after the 2007 elections took  almost everyone by surprise, since virtually no one had imagined inter-tribal tensions as high enough to make that kind of conflict plausible in the first place.

[Halgrímur]

Tanzanian entrepreneur and tech investor Ali Mufuruki (founder of Infotech Investment Group) on the background of why the election result was annulled and the link back to the 1964 revolution:

"Everyone knows that CUF has won every election in Zanzibar since the advent of multiparty politics, but has never been allowed to rule."

"What they have in Zanzibar is a revolutionary government that took power by force from the oppressor (the Sultan) and they will never surrender that power except by force. What many people (including in the US) don't understand is that the people in power in Zanzibar today are the formerly oppressed (slaves and other social underclasses) of the era of the Sultanate. Whereas CUF members are largely descendants of the former ruling classes in Zanzibar."

"The social problems and economic inequalities that existed before the revolution such as the mistreatment and exploitation of the slaves and the vengeful acts of the post-revolution leadership against the Arabs in Zanzibar (forced marriages with blacks, dispossession, torture and murder) have never been openly discussed, meaning that no genuine reconciliation of the two communities has taken place on the islands."

"The tenuous peace that Zanzibar has enjoyed over the past five decades has been made possible by the Union in its current structure, which makes defence, foreign affairs and internal affairs Union matters. Left to their own devices, the Zanzibaris would be at each other's throats in a minute and we on the mainland would have to deal with the consequences of such an eventuality."

"It is not surprising therefore that a section of Zanzibaris resent the Union and view it as an alien imposition not reflecting the will of the people of Zanzibar."

His recipe is institutionalized power sharing and a referendum on an opt-out of the union after 25 years with a Yes leading to a referendum on independence in 2041.

[Halgrímur]

Former Nigerian President and well-known incompetent buffoon Goodluck Jonathan has been selected to led the Commonwealth mediation team in Zanzibar. Good luck with that...

"Sources say Mr Jonathan's choice was also informed by his experience with Islamic radicalisation and extremist violence in Nigeria."

LOL

http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/news/Jonathan-to-mediate-Zanzibar-poll-crisis/-/2558/2946608/-/118n1mx/-/index.html

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Magufili seems to be taking a very harsh stance against corruption, making spot checks on several departments and hospitals and firing any leaders who are running a bad joint. He's winning a lot of plaudits on social media and the international press, for cutting back ceremonial spending in favour of public healthcare; and seems to have a good knack for PR.