PISTO LERO
JF-Expert Member
- Mar 8, 2011
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Dar es Salaam. Until mid-last year, the opposition CHADEMA was vibrant and on the go in all corners of the country. If it was not hosting public rallies, it was opening new branches--all designed to keep the ruling CCM on its toes.
Its fiery campaign to become the country's top party started soon after the 2010 General Election gave CCM a tough time and signalled a dramatic showdown in next year's election.
But that vibrancy and mobility that the party has demonstrated in the past four years appears to be fading gradually, allowing CCM to lead what analysts have described as an onslaught on the opposition party. As CHADEMA eases up, CCM leaders are all over the country trying to give the party a new lease of life and reaching out to the people.
Given this dormancy, questions are being raised as to whether CHADEMA will survive CCM's onslaught--let alone stage a meaningful challenge to the ruling party in next year's election.
Both parties have their own version of this political development. While CHADEMA Chairman Freeman Mbowe is accusing CCM of employing dirty tricks to suppress it growth, CCM Secretary General Abdulrahman Kinana says their rival does not have a national agenda and simply jumps on events.
Mr Mbowe told The Citizen on Sunday that what some people perceive as inactivity is more of a downtime as his party considers how to avoid what he described as CCM's use of state power and dirty tricks to kill his party. "We have to change tactics because our people are being killed in political rallies," he said. "You can't be taking your people to ‘war' only to have them killed for no apparent reason--and the state takes no action."
His party's supporters were killed in a bomb attack in Arusha, he added. "...the police are using force to frustrate our political activities. So we have changed tactics and the effect cannot come that soon as the people would want."
Mr Mbowe admits that his party is going through difficult times and has critical issues to deal with. "There are a lot of behind-the-scenes efforts to destroy CHADEMA," he adds. "We are undergoing very critical moments in our political existence. We are not surprised by this because we did not expect CCM to help us grow but to kill us."
But CCM Secretary General Abdulrahman Kinana, who is leading the offensive against CHADEMA, going from region to region to revitalise his party, dismissed Mr Mbowe's version of the story. CHADEMA was simply not strategic and relied on
sporadic political events to push their case--and that was why the party could not sustain a national agenda, he said.
Mr Kinana added: "It (CHADEMA) is an event-oriented party. They are always jumping from one agenda to another or reacting to sporadic events to keep their party afloat. They have no national agenda and that picture is becoming clearer to Tanzanians today more than ever before. Today their agenda is the new constitution. Now everything is around Katiba. Their plans are not long-term, objective and sustainable. Whatever they take on is short term and sporadic." Blaming CCM and its government for the party's troubles, the CCM secretary-general said, was escapism and an attempt to hide their weaknesses in managing internal politics.
CHADEMA's earlier vibrancy was a case of taking advantage of CCM's weaknesses and disunity to spread it wings, Mr Kinana added. "We have to be honest. There was a time we spent most of our time and resources dealing with leadership problems in our party instead of reaching out to wananchi, hear their problems and find ways to solve them. Our unity was affected. We stopped addressing issues touching the people's lives such as employment, land and availability of essential social services. We devoted our time to resolving intra-party conflicts. That is how Chadema came in."
CCM Secretary General Abdulrahman Kinana,
By Bernard James, The Citizen Reporter Posted Sunday, May 4 2014 at 00:00
IN SUMMARY Its fiery campaign to become the country's top party started soon after the 2010 General Election gave CCM a tough time and signalled a dramatic showdown in next year's election.
But there are those who feel that the leadership conflicts that have engulfed CHADEMA in the past year are to blame for the party's inactivity and contributed to its poor performance in recent by-elections.
CCM won 16 out of 22 ward elections in June last year. In similar elections in February, the ruling party took 24 out of 27 seats.
Analysts argue that it is these intra-party conflicts that gave CCM advantage to win this landslide victory in ward elections and in two parliamentary elections this year. "CHADEMA under-estimated intra-party wrangling and the impact on its future survival," says Mr Semkae Kilonzo, a coordinator with the Policy Forum, a network of NGOs working on influencing policy processes to enhance poverty reduction, equity and democratisation.
He believes the expulsion of the youthful firebrand Zitto Kabwe and other senior officials of the party last year also demoralised many active members. "Members are questioning if the current leadership will take them far," Mr Kilonzo adds. "The party has to do some soul searching to see if it has the right leadership to move forward." Although Mr Mbowe admits that Mr Kabwe's exit may have dealt the party a big blow, he is adamant that any serious party had to take such decisions against members violating its constitution.
"The effects are short term but in the long run it is going to be a huge political gain that is critical for the credibility of our party," he adds. "We did so to ensure we have a leadership that is loyal to the party and to our cause. CCM is expert at planting conflicts in the opposition. These are the usual ups and downs in political parties. We have survived many crises."
On allegations that losing the by-elections in Kalenga and Chalinze was a sign of losing popularity, Mr Mbowe responded that the election also indicated that the party was growing. "Yes, we lost the election. but if you look critically at the result in Kalenga, the trend shows we are winning more voters than previous elections. We did not field a candidate in Kalenga in 2010. This is the first time and we managed to get 6,000 votes. Is this not a sign that we are getting more support?"
In Chalinze, there were 92,000 registered voters but only 25,000 voted. According to Mr Mbowe, the key question to ask is: Where were the other 70,000? In Kalenga, he pointed out, only 22 per cent of registered voters cast their ballots.
According to Mr Mbowe, a party can claim to have won an election fairly and freely only when at least 50 per cent of registered voters turned up.
The CHADEMA leader also attributed the election loss to failure by the electoral commission to upgrade the permanent voter register. "CCM knows we enjoy big support among youth and there is a deliberate plan to disenfranchise them," he added. "If we go to the 2015 general election with an updated PVR, that's going to be the end of CCM."
But Mr Kinana insists CHADEMA is looking for scapegoats for problems it had created. "CHADEMA's problems today are from within. They should not look for outside excuses. It is easy to go for outside excuses and forget to look at yourself to get answers to your problems.
Mr Kinana says the main secret of CCM's survival for over 50 years is that it has a genuine internal mechanism to assess itself. "What has been helping us is a mechanism to assess ourselves from time to time, which we have cherished for decades," says Mr Kinana. "If you don't have a genuine self assessment mechanism, you are definitely going to collapse like CHADEMA today."
A respected political science lecturer, Prof Gaudence Mpangala, says he cannot rule out the possibility that underground moves by the ruling party to kill CHADEMA were responsible for CHADEMA's tribulations. "But I think they (CHADEMA) still has chance to reorganise itself and move forward," he adds. But the expulsion of Mr Kabwe and other young leaders of the party did have adverse effects on the party, given that he had rapport with youth, who are CHADEMA's main supporters.
This year was a bad politically, Mr Mbowe concedes. "Our big machinery is confined in the Constituent Assembly, then we are going to have parliamentary sessions on the budget," he added. "With this calendar, you cannot expect to be vibrant.
Its fiery campaign to become the country's top party started soon after the 2010 General Election gave CCM a tough time and signalled a dramatic showdown in next year's election.
But that vibrancy and mobility that the party has demonstrated in the past four years appears to be fading gradually, allowing CCM to lead what analysts have described as an onslaught on the opposition party. As CHADEMA eases up, CCM leaders are all over the country trying to give the party a new lease of life and reaching out to the people.
Given this dormancy, questions are being raised as to whether CHADEMA will survive CCM's onslaught--let alone stage a meaningful challenge to the ruling party in next year's election.
Both parties have their own version of this political development. While CHADEMA Chairman Freeman Mbowe is accusing CCM of employing dirty tricks to suppress it growth, CCM Secretary General Abdulrahman Kinana says their rival does not have a national agenda and simply jumps on events.
Mr Mbowe told The Citizen on Sunday that what some people perceive as inactivity is more of a downtime as his party considers how to avoid what he described as CCM's use of state power and dirty tricks to kill his party. "We have to change tactics because our people are being killed in political rallies," he said. "You can't be taking your people to ‘war' only to have them killed for no apparent reason--and the state takes no action."
His party's supporters were killed in a bomb attack in Arusha, he added. "...the police are using force to frustrate our political activities. So we have changed tactics and the effect cannot come that soon as the people would want."
Mr Mbowe admits that his party is going through difficult times and has critical issues to deal with. "There are a lot of behind-the-scenes efforts to destroy CHADEMA," he adds. "We are undergoing very critical moments in our political existence. We are not surprised by this because we did not expect CCM to help us grow but to kill us."
But CCM Secretary General Abdulrahman Kinana, who is leading the offensive against CHADEMA, going from region to region to revitalise his party, dismissed Mr Mbowe's version of the story. CHADEMA was simply not strategic and relied on
sporadic political events to push their case--and that was why the party could not sustain a national agenda, he said.
Mr Kinana added: "It (CHADEMA) is an event-oriented party. They are always jumping from one agenda to another or reacting to sporadic events to keep their party afloat. They have no national agenda and that picture is becoming clearer to Tanzanians today more than ever before. Today their agenda is the new constitution. Now everything is around Katiba. Their plans are not long-term, objective and sustainable. Whatever they take on is short term and sporadic." Blaming CCM and its government for the party's troubles, the CCM secretary-general said, was escapism and an attempt to hide their weaknesses in managing internal politics.
CHADEMA's earlier vibrancy was a case of taking advantage of CCM's weaknesses and disunity to spread it wings, Mr Kinana added. "We have to be honest. There was a time we spent most of our time and resources dealing with leadership problems in our party instead of reaching out to wananchi, hear their problems and find ways to solve them. Our unity was affected. We stopped addressing issues touching the people's lives such as employment, land and availability of essential social services. We devoted our time to resolving intra-party conflicts. That is how Chadema came in."
CCM Secretary General Abdulrahman Kinana,
By Bernard James, The Citizen Reporter Posted Sunday, May 4 2014 at 00:00
IN SUMMARY Its fiery campaign to become the country's top party started soon after the 2010 General Election gave CCM a tough time and signalled a dramatic showdown in next year's election.
But there are those who feel that the leadership conflicts that have engulfed CHADEMA in the past year are to blame for the party's inactivity and contributed to its poor performance in recent by-elections.
CCM won 16 out of 22 ward elections in June last year. In similar elections in February, the ruling party took 24 out of 27 seats.
Analysts argue that it is these intra-party conflicts that gave CCM advantage to win this landslide victory in ward elections and in two parliamentary elections this year. "CHADEMA under-estimated intra-party wrangling and the impact on its future survival," says Mr Semkae Kilonzo, a coordinator with the Policy Forum, a network of NGOs working on influencing policy processes to enhance poverty reduction, equity and democratisation.
He believes the expulsion of the youthful firebrand Zitto Kabwe and other senior officials of the party last year also demoralised many active members. "Members are questioning if the current leadership will take them far," Mr Kilonzo adds. "The party has to do some soul searching to see if it has the right leadership to move forward." Although Mr Mbowe admits that Mr Kabwe's exit may have dealt the party a big blow, he is adamant that any serious party had to take such decisions against members violating its constitution.
"The effects are short term but in the long run it is going to be a huge political gain that is critical for the credibility of our party," he adds. "We did so to ensure we have a leadership that is loyal to the party and to our cause. CCM is expert at planting conflicts in the opposition. These are the usual ups and downs in political parties. We have survived many crises."
On allegations that losing the by-elections in Kalenga and Chalinze was a sign of losing popularity, Mr Mbowe responded that the election also indicated that the party was growing. "Yes, we lost the election. but if you look critically at the result in Kalenga, the trend shows we are winning more voters than previous elections. We did not field a candidate in Kalenga in 2010. This is the first time and we managed to get 6,000 votes. Is this not a sign that we are getting more support?"
In Chalinze, there were 92,000 registered voters but only 25,000 voted. According to Mr Mbowe, the key question to ask is: Where were the other 70,000? In Kalenga, he pointed out, only 22 per cent of registered voters cast their ballots.
According to Mr Mbowe, a party can claim to have won an election fairly and freely only when at least 50 per cent of registered voters turned up.
The CHADEMA leader also attributed the election loss to failure by the electoral commission to upgrade the permanent voter register. "CCM knows we enjoy big support among youth and there is a deliberate plan to disenfranchise them," he added. "If we go to the 2015 general election with an updated PVR, that's going to be the end of CCM."
But Mr Kinana insists CHADEMA is looking for scapegoats for problems it had created. "CHADEMA's problems today are from within. They should not look for outside excuses. It is easy to go for outside excuses and forget to look at yourself to get answers to your problems.
Mr Kinana says the main secret of CCM's survival for over 50 years is that it has a genuine internal mechanism to assess itself. "What has been helping us is a mechanism to assess ourselves from time to time, which we have cherished for decades," says Mr Kinana. "If you don't have a genuine self assessment mechanism, you are definitely going to collapse like CHADEMA today."
A respected political science lecturer, Prof Gaudence Mpangala, says he cannot rule out the possibility that underground moves by the ruling party to kill CHADEMA were responsible for CHADEMA's tribulations. "But I think they (CHADEMA) still has chance to reorganise itself and move forward," he adds. But the expulsion of Mr Kabwe and other young leaders of the party did have adverse effects on the party, given that he had rapport with youth, who are CHADEMA's main supporters.
This year was a bad politically, Mr Mbowe concedes. "Our big machinery is confined in the Constituent Assembly, then we are going to have parliamentary sessions on the budget," he added. "With this calendar, you cannot expect to be vibrant.