Lowassa escapes Chadema, CCM traps

Dar es Salaam. When delivering his resignation speech as a Prime Minister in Parliament on February 7, 2008, many parliamentarians across the aisle rejoiced. It was as if his political journey had ended. But that was a grave mistake.

The person, who was booed and branded as corrupt ten years ago, has turned out to be ‘clean’ and is now being celebrated.

Since his resignation, following a committee probe report on an emergency power contract granted to Richmond Development Company LLC of Houston, Texas, in the US, Mr Edward Lowassa has passed through a political ‘furnace’ that has eschewed a clean Lowassa who is in much demand by both the ruling party and the opposition.

Ten year of Lowassa’s cleaning process

The past ten years are enough to describe how he was rejected, isolated and later accepted by first by the opposition and then the ruling party.

After announcing his resignation in February 2008, many CCM members kept a distance. As the Richmond saga kept unfolding a narrative was created to portray Lowassa as the doyen of corruption in the country.

The opposition, especially, were reverent in their criticism of Mr Lowassa, who was seen as a serious contender to the presidency in the 2015 General Election. Only a year before, in 2007, Lowassa had featured in the opposition’s list of shame that featured the most corrupt, high profile individuals.

But quietly and slowly Mr Lowassa worked to reassemble his ‘network’ that had been behind former President Jakaya Kikwete’s success in clinching the CCM nomination in the 2005 General Election. Some members within CCM started changing their attitude towards Mr Lowassa to the point that, as the 2015 General Election was approaching he became the most viable presidential candidate within the ruling party.

But the party’s high level decision making organs, eventually, eliminated him at the start of the vetting process.

He jumped ship to Chadema and became the flag bearer of a coalition of the opposition, created to give CCM a run for their money during the 2015 presidential election.

The opposition, then, had the duty of cleaning him up to make him appealing to voters.

The opposition, who had castigated Mr Lowassa for his role in Richmond scandal, attributed his resignation in the saga, as that of a leader taking responsibility for a collective mistake. It was the system that was the problem not Lowassa as an individual, they said.

The person that the opposition booed, vilified as the doyen of corruption in 2008 onwards became ‘Mr Clean’ in 2015.

During the campaigns CCM capitalized on the narrative of Lowassa as ‘Mr Corrupt’ and attacked the opposition for accepting the same man that they had painted as corrupt to run as their presidential candidate.

CCM’s attacks did not help much as Lowassa garnered over 6.07 million votes (39.97 per cent of all the votes cast). The votes, definitely gave him political capital that any political party would envy.

It was not a surprise then that in the past year or so reports started suggesting that CCM were work hard to have Lowassa ‘returning home.’ Returning home he did on March 1.

Read: What next after Lowassa return to CCM?

Opposition leaders have been careful when commenting on his defection back to CCM.

“Saying I’m happy will be a lie because we received him in good faith, but he has defected to another political party. He should speak the truth there and assist us in telling his new party that it should lead the country well,” Chadema national chairman Freeman Mbowe was quoted at the weekend as saying.

“Let him go. We will continue building the party and, personally, I don’t dream of leaving Chadema,” said former Prime Minister Frederick Sumaye, responding to a question if he had a similar plan.

“We congratulate Mr Lowassa on the good job in opposition politics. Opposition isn’t hostility and I wish him all the best in his future endeavours,” said NCCR Mageuzi national chairman James Mbatia.

Some political commentators said over the weekend that fraud accusations against Mr Lowassa were merely political and not legal.

Former CCK chairman Constantine Akitanda said Mr Lowassa’s fraud accusations were politically propagated, and had no legal ground.