Bunge (Parliament) is back in office and it is a delight. They are hopefully going to provide part of the counterbalance to what is emerging as the style of the Fifth Administration: government by decree.

Decrees have their advantages, to be sure. Cleanliness, for example: Dar es Salaam has never looked quite so well groomed. We now have to show our patriotism by doing the constructive work of picking up litter and unblocking drains, and it is nothing to sneer at. Even the air is smelling sweeter and the ever-present dust has decided to stop lurking around so conspicuously. A few more years of this and we may just form decent habits such as the use of public bins and the maintenance of front yards.

It is clear that authoritarianism can generate discipline. What kind of discipline is it, though? This is where one of the frontiers of the African conversation on democracy lies. The term “strong leadership” tends to get thrown around a lot on the continent, which is menacing. Is this part of the colonial hangover, some unspoken residual belief in might? Or is it just good old-fashioned patriarchy?

There are those that like to take their cue from the executive, believing that one man and his gang of Cabinet officers make up the unquestionable leadership of a republic. Then there are those of us who are much more about the people’s collective will, checks and balances and keeping the arena of public life as broad and diverse as possible.

In my opinion, “strong leadership” vested in the hands of the very few is definitely one of the structural problems that African countries in particular have to be careful about.

For the past few months, it has been thoroughly entertaining to read and watch the international press bend over backwards to throw accolades at Tanzania and her new president.

A little variety

Understandable: Much of it has to do with the fact that looking for examples of obvious heroism in African polities can be a tricky business, and Tanzania has excelled at grooming her public persona for decades. We’re an easy win, especially for those who are disinclined to actually study contemporary African politics in any depth.

Yet just this week the Fifth Administration issued a decree that is going to sorely test the outside world’s understanding of just what is going on in Tanzania right now.

Foreign missions and international organisations have been ordered to work exclusively through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. They have to say please and thank you just to ask for permission to travel anywhere or speak to anyone. Oh, I can’t wait to see what the international press is going to make of this.

It is beginning to look as though Tanzania is developing a rather predictable pendulum swing. If an incumbent proves to be particularly disciplinarian in nature, his successor is likely to be more relaxed about telling people what to do. If an incumbent is entirely too lax about the business of public authority, his successor is likely to have draconian tendencies.

Which is good, a little variety never hurt anyone. The system of governance has so far been able to keep individuals in check through some combination of the Grand Old Party and the slow-moving Civil Service. And most recently, the newly resuscitated legislature.

The current intake of parliamentarians was always going to have their work cut out for them. There is some contentious unfinished business inherited from the Fourth Administration, such as our pending new constitution. And then there is Zanzibar, whose elections have been put off yet again, giving us all the distinct disadvantage of having to hope that the patience of the Islanders will not be tested to breaking point.

But now Bunge has a new and perhaps even more immediate problem: They have to negotiate some measure of the people’s power back from the clutches of an administration that is getting a little too trigger-happy with its decrees. I only highlight them because the legislature is and remains the one public institution that the executive cannot entirely subjugate to its will. Right?

Elsie Eyakuze is an independent consultant and blogger for The Mikocheni Report, http://mikochenireport.blogspot.com. E-mail: [email protected]