What next after Samia’s democracy task force?

We now have the report of the presidential task force on democracy. What is compiled in it could well be described as down memory lane from our independence.

On June 8, I wrote: “President Samia, who exhibits some tendencies to be in the consensual mould, is now left to try and break the mould through an absolutely superfluous initiative like the task force on multi-democracy. After thirty years, what a damning verdict on our multi-party experiment.”Interestingly, only the past week I came across a book from 1995 by a former Speaker of the National Assembly, Mr Pius Msekwa, titled Essays on The Transition to Multi-Partyism.

Ours feels like a never-ending transition. My understanding of a transition is that it only lasts for a certain period of time. Can you imagine South Africa still talking of a transition to democracy? You can’t surely be living in a state of perpetual transition.

Consequently, my reading of the reception of the task force report by the public can be described as anything but enthusiastic.

The mental scars of a population afflicted by a self-seeking political class -- that here includes the opposition -- is playing out before us.

Civil society is important in this regard and demands a review. It is apparent how they’ve been caught up in the vicious circle of our politics. To widen the subject, it was President Mkapa who offered his thoughts on Tanzania’s civil society in his autobiography in 2019.

“Perhaps the simplistic approach of some NGOs and CSOs to merely criticise reflects the weak or immature state of many civil society organisations in Tanzania; Kenya has a dynamic NGO and CSO community which is thoughtful and presents alternatives. It could be a by-product of our reliance on Mwalimu making decisions for this nation for so long, coupled with the fact that it took so long for new political parties to form. Perhaps this resulted in the development of a society where constructive criticism was stunted, thus a populist and headline-seeking approach of criticism, rather than suggesting helpful alternatives, became the easier route.”

A populist and headline-seeking approach is one thing but as we speak today, there is no denying that there has been an alarming retrogression of civil society.

Any kind of criticism in the form of intellectual writing is an extreme rarity. I still struggle to come to terms with how the legal profession could allow their bi-annual publication to phase out of public circulation if not out of sheer laziness. Lawyers must tirelessly be at the forefront of sensitising the general populace.

The contamination of our poverty of politics has insidiously eaten into our education where the ideas factories in the shape of universities have been shorn of the essentials. They’re intellectually moribund zones in other words. Once upon a time there existed an outfit at the University of Dar called Research on Democracy in Tanzania (Redit), that is now dead and buried. Every beginning of the year they would organise a conference titled “The State of Politics”. So, as our woes have been increasing, our educational institutions have taken an invisible seat at the table.

To my mind, the most outrageous case of the state of affairs is when by-elections have been held at parliamentary or local level or as has been announced for December. You find some opposition party bigwigs deciding to boycott them and no one cares a hoot about the representational needs of the poor voter and potential candidates. The first person to scream blue murder in this instance should have been the legal fraternity through their historic Tanganyika Law Society (TLS).

Inextricably tied to this democratic outrage comes loud and clear the immediacy of independent candidates. Even Mzee Msekwa last year added his voice to this matter in no uncertain terms. It continues to be the elephant in the room.

The task force has evidently stated nothing here which to me renders virtually everything else in the report nugatory. You simply can’t talk about political parties in this multi-party dispensation and leave out private candidates from the equation. Tanzanians have been living in an artificial political environment that has benefited primarily CCM. By the same token, Professor Samuel Mushi (late) of the University of Dar, wrote back in 1997 something very damning on “cross-overs within the opposition camp” for Tanzania Election Monitoring Committee (Temco). “Experiences such as these should support the contention by the opposition parties that the election law should be reviewed to allow for independent candidature. This would leave political parties with committed members and reduce “political prostitution” during elections.

Things have embarrassingly only got worse on this front.

It is against this backdrop that I feel the push for a new constitution is too ambitious for Tanzanians. Constitution-making calls for a high-minded citizenry and none other than Nicholas Haysom, UN special representative for South Sudan, summed it up beautifully last year: “Drafting a national constitution is a quintessential act of sovereignty. It expresses the highest aspirations of a nation and its most cherished values. An inclusive national conversation will lay a foundation for a social contract between the citizens of the country. An engaged and inclusive process will increase the probability of a durable peace.”

Gradual changes are the way to go for us. Here I can cite again an important passage from Mkapa’s book where he mentions that “the concept of winner takes all has no African roots - our way is to be communal and inclusive.” If this is really the case, the task force should have attempted to offer proper mechanisms to address it. Even a former chairman of the National Electoral Commission, Judge Makame, expressed his disappointment in 2005 at how their proposal on electoral reform “didn’t find favour up there.” He was patently referring to Mkapa who was then the outgoing president. Years later Mkapa ironically saw the light of day!

More specifically on amendments, shortly after the completion of the first year in office of Samia, I noted that “as a first step to get out of this rut, I resolutely recommend the adoption of a system of parliamentary vetting of public office-bearers. Appointments in this day and age surely can’t just be effected at the stroke of the presidential pen.”

There is so much here to learn from the Kenyan experience where the nominee takes an oath to say the absolute truth on their past.

And as far as the legislators themselves being accountable, I refer to a book by Professor Gamaliel Fimbo published in 2010. In it he states: “The Nyalali Commission recommends dual accountability for members of the National Assembly to the political party and to the electorate. It recommends that membership should cease on crossing the floor or member’s expulsion from the political party or in the event that over 50 percent of registered voters in his/her constituency submit to the Electoral Commission a written statement that they have no confidence in her/him.”

Accountability will put the country on the firm road to development. It is for this regard that I fully concur with the late veteran politician of Kenya, G.G. Kariuki who wrote back in 2001 that, “when an accountable political culture has been achieved in Kenya, and in the rest of Africa, then so will have been my vision of uhuru.” In conclusion, I repeat that the task force was superfluous.

Andrew Bomani is a political scientist and acting publicity secretary of UDP: [email protected]

I’d go further and say that even the twin recommendations for an independent electoral commission and the petitioning of the highest court on the presidential vote can’t be of much value in our poverty of politics. In this regard, the one thing that clearly stands out for me in the task force report is the spotlight shone on the state of many of our political parties. Accountability must begin within the parties themselves that is absolutely not the case. The task force’s recommendations here must be a foundation on which to move the country forward.”