Tanzanian lessons for Ugandan opposition

Outgoing president Jakaya Kikwete (L) introduces incoming president John Magufuli at a rally by ruling party Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania on Oct.23, ahead of the country’s presidential elections on Oct.25. AFP PHOTO / DANIEL HAYDUKCould Mbabazi and FDC suffer the same fate as Tanzania’s Lowassa and Chadema?

When John Pombe Joseph Magufuli was declared winner of Tanzania’s general election on Oct.29, he probably won Tanzania’s most competitive election since multi-party democracy was ushered into the country about 20 years ago. On Magufuli’s 56th birthday, the National Electoral Commission declared him winner after he garnered 8,882,935 votes, which gave him a win percentage of 58.46%.

His closest challenger, Edward Lowassa, 62, Tanzania’s former prime minister and CCM stalwart polled 6,072,848 (39.97%) of the votes for his adopted party— Chama Cha Demokrasia na Maendeleo (Chadema).  Of the 22 million who were registered to vote in the Oct.25 polls, 67% turned up to cast their ballots.

Observers of Tanzanian politics say this was the first time the opposition put up a formidable fight for power in two decades. This was only confirmed when Magufuli eventually won the election with the lowest margin by any CCM party candidate.

The opposition capitalised on CCM’s failures. Despite staying in power for over five decades, many opposition supporters, mostly youth, said they had had enough of CCM’s decades-long domination of Tanzanian politics.

Tanzania has registered robust economic growth over the last couple of years where real GDP growth rates were 8.2% (2013); 7% (2014) and is actually projected to grow by 6.9% this year according to a 2015 economic outlook report prepared by Deloitte—a UK-based independent financial advisory firm.   But opposition supporters said the ruling party has done little to reduce widespread poverty and they were equally frustrated at the government’s perceived lack of action to check corruption that is rife across government ministries, departments and agencies.

Tanzania has been slipping down Transparency International’s corruption perception index and now ranks 119th out of 175 surveyed countries.

Evidence of official corruption has been rising prompting donors to suspend aid. Last year, up to $490 million in budget support was suspended after it was revealed that ministers had siphoned up to $180 million from the central bank, using energy escrow accounts.

There is a wide-ranging array of laws to fight corruption; but Kikwete’s government has had serious problems in Tanzania with bribery often cited as an obstacle to the growth of the business sector.

The 2012 national household survey revealed that the rate of incidence of poverty has declined from 34% to 28% in the period 2007 to 2012, an indication that economic growth is trickling down to the poor. Yet some experts say this is happening at a slow pace.  Others simply wanted CCM to move on, insisting that the 54 years the party has ruled Tanzania were enough and it was time for another party to run the country. Still, thousands of other supporters noted they had few alternatives.

Lowassa turned out to be a divisive candidate among opposition supporters. Some were frustrated that although the opposition had spent years telling Tanzanians that Lowassa was corrupt, it had taken them just weeks to choose him as their preferred candidate. The move pushed the two leading opposition figures in Tanzania, Wilbrod Slaa and Ibrahim Lipumba, out of the Ukawa (Umoja wa Katiba ya Wananchi) coalition.

Magufuli is said to have benefitted from CCM’s entrenched advantage of incumbency but most importantly, the divisions in the Ukawa opposition made his job easier.

As the former Chemistry teacher takes office, he has been asked to come up with a speedy resolution of the stalemate in Zanzibar— the semi-autonomous archipelago that make up the Union with Tanzania, where elections were annulled over allegations of fraud.

Magufuli’s new leadership is also being asked to intensify the war against poverty, corruption and ensure appropriate management of natural resources.

Magdalena Ngaiza, a senior lecturer from the University of Dar es Salaam University’s Institute of Development Studies told the Tanzanian broadsheet,The Guardian on Oct. 29, that the corruption facing Tanzania today has been largely caused by a weak executive.

“There is need to overhaul the country’s executive system to fight against rampant corruption,” she said, “There is need to ensure that the nation becomes disciplined where wanainchi respect the set rules and regulations.”

Lessons for Uganda

As Uganda’s own presidential campaigns kickoff on Nov.09, political observers in Uganda say        there are similarities between the just concluded election in Tanzania and Uganda’s.

For starters, while Tanzania’s mass party, CCM, has been in power for the last 54 years, in Uganda, the National Resistance Movement (NRM) has ruled for 30 years.

There are close to seven million Ugandans still trapped in poverty (Ugandans said to be living on less than $1 a day).

According to a recent Vision Group survey of Ugandan voters, poverty was identified as a major issue that they want to be addressed.

They also identified health as another important issue affecting the country; followed by unemployment and corruption.The youth also blame the government for the increasing levels of unemployment, poverty and corruption tendencies in Uganda.

Interestingly, the similarities between Uganda and Tanzania do not stop at the issues; even the players involved in the political process ahead of the elections share some similarities.

In Tanzania,the main opposition candidate, Edward Lowassa, is a former prime minister and CCM stalwart who only defected to the opposition party, Chadema, in 2008, following corruption allegations that were slapped on his shoulders.

In Uganda, Amama Mbabazi was until September last year, the Prime Minister of Uganda, NRM party Secretary General, and Museveni’s right hand man.

In Tanzania, you had Lowassa crossing from CCM to Chadema and eventually standing on the Ukawa ticket; in Uganda you have Mbabazi coming up with his Go Forward pressure group and joining the opposition coalition, The Democratic Alliance (TDA), said Mwambutsya Ndebesa, a senior lecturer of history and development studies at Makerere University.

However, as though he is providing a possible reason as to why TDA eventually collapsed, Ndebesa goes ahead to say,whereas Lowassa joined Chadema, here the main opposition party was urged to join TDA.

Continuing with the comparisons, Dr. Sabiiti Makara, a professor of Political Science at Makerere University says Lowassa had stayed in CCM ‘for ages’ just like Amama Mbabazi had done under the NRM.

“Lowassa had some ethical issues just like Mbabazi faces the same ethical questions here.” In fact, Magufuli only emerged as a compromise candidate after Kikwete refused to back Lowassa, his erstwhile ally and Prime Minister who was forced to resign in 2008 at the height of a major graft scandal.

Patrick Wakida, the executive director of Research World International, a Kampala-based opinion polling firm told The Independent on Nov.02 that there are obvious similarities in the two countries’ main political environment in the lead up to the general election.

“You have excitement within the electorate,” he said, “But like CCM found; this is going to be the hardest election for NRM to win.”

Wakida foresees a situation where the number of seats of both the opposition and independents will likely increase in the 10th Parliament.

“If you look at the number of contestations in the just concluded NRM primaries, the level of satisfaction from the contestants is low and yet they are being compelled to accept the results; this will not happen for the majority of them.”

“Petitions to the NRM EC were expected but the number of people who petitioned the Electoral Commission is very small. That is probably because they don’t trust that the EC will give them justice if they seek this redress,” Wakida said.

“I expected the number of petitioners to the NRM EC to be higher but they chose not to do so. So do you think they will keep quiet; my answer is no.”

As for Frederick Golooba Mutebi, an independent researcher and political analyst, he says it is possible to compare the two situations but only up to a point.

First he says, in a way, Lowassa’s situation resembles that of Mbabazi. “Lowassa is the ex-Premier, he is an ex-senior official in CCM and he was the right hand man of Kikwete.”

He added: “Lowassa was also instrumental in helping Kikwete with his nominations in 2005 as he vied for the party’s green and gold flag; and at a personal level, he was also fairly close to the outgoing president. This in a way resembles the situation in Uganda with President Yoweri Museveni and Amama Mbabazi.”

Golooba said Mbabazi’s fallout was largely as a result of what happened in Kyankwanzi while Lowassa’s fallout was because of alleged corruption and he felt that he had been betrayed since he was used as a proxy to do the deals that got him into trouble.

“He felt a sense of betrayal,” Golooba said, before adding that, “There is some sense of truth to that story because he was never prosecuted in the courts of law.”

Golooba says he will not be surprised if Mbabazi loses to Museveni but he is capable of orchestrating a revolt in the ruling party where a sizeable number of party faithful will cross to his Go Forward pressure group.

Makara said in Tanzania the opposition tried to endear itself to first time voters and the youth but they could not beat CCM because it is everywhere across the country.

“CCM is a deeply entrenched party and whoever was to become party flag bearer would eventually win the country’s presidency.”That too is similar to the NRM which has party structures in each of the estimated 60,000 villages across Uganda.

One more hurdle for the Ugandan opposition, says Wakida, is that whereas Tanzanians are allowed to contest for political office without violence; in Uganda that will not happen; there will be a lot of state-sanctioned security operatives trying to intimidate supporters of the opposition candidates.

Fred Mukasa Mbidde, an MP in the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) who is also the Chief Legal Advisor in the Democratic Party says as we head into the general election, the analysis should shift from whether the opposition can win to whether there will be peace after the election.

“The incumbent has organised an election which he wants to win at all costs; but the voter population wants change as was clearly demonstrated in the NRM primaries; the general election is not different.

“If the result of the February general election is not what is desired by the voter population, we may have some bit of uncertainty if sanity does not prevail.

“The result is already known; Ugandans want change. If they do what Tanzania has done to Zanzibar, Ugandans may not do what Zanzibaris have done [keeping quiet].”