AfricaPress-Tanzania: RELATIVELY elderly Tanzanians, plus non-nationals who are keen monitors of Tanzanian affairs, may recall that, the nation’s pioneer president, Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere, made a very bold decision on the issue of multi-party politics.
Many of his compatriots who had been polled in 1992 were in favour of the retention of the single-party political system.
But, in keeping with his typical broad mindedness, Mwalimu countered the popular viewpoint, against the backdrop of the sentiments that had been sweeping the world, in favour of multi-partism.
He felt that, whereas the situation would in the short term be tranquil we could “graduate” into a political bomb, in the form of mounting pressure for embracing the multi party model.
Thus it was that, Tanzania joined the multi-party political system, the first experiment being made in 1995, when the long-ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi – a merger of Mainland’s TANU and Zanzibar’s Afro Shiraz Party –competed with newly formed competitors.
The rest, as the saying goes, is history. Much as CCM has sustained its supremacy via periodic election victories, competition has kept the ruling party constantly on its toes, conscious that, if it slackens, it would be defeated and lose its coveted status.
Under the chairmanship of incumbent President John Magufuli, CCM has undertaken periodic internal reforms geared at retaining the confidence of Tanzanians.
For, this way, as majority voters, they would continue, at levels ranging from the grassroots to the top executive office, to invest their trust in it.
One of the strong points on which CCM is anchoring its current campaigns ahead of the October-scheduled polls are the wide range of social and economic achievements it has recorded over the nearly five years of the Magufuli-led administration.
Sheer logic dictates that, voters are attracted by a party that meets their expectations satisfactorily, via a government over which it superintends.
Dislodging CCM from power would primarily entail its opponents convincing majority voters, through sober explanations, on how they would outperform the ruling party.
But that approach is lacking, what we are witnessing, by and large, being hot air in the form of potentially peace-disrupting tendencies like insults.
Some of these were cited and condemned by speakers at the inter- religious peace committee meeting held in Dodoma on Monday, ahead of the formal General Election campaigns kicking off today.
For Tanzanians, peace, as a bedrock of patriotism, is paramount!
