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Do we want a dictatorship in Tanzania? Don’t forget, debate is officially prohibited

Saturday September 03 2016

We now have a little respite before we take the plunge, to ponder just what might have been — or still may be, after the pause ends and the perilous race to the abyss resumes.

We have had a shrill shouting match between the authorities – President John Magufuli, his assistants, the police — and the main opposition Chadema party on whether the latter can go ahead and hold political protests under the umbrella of their most recent slogan, Ukuta, an acronym for Alliance to Combat Dictatorship in Tanzania.

President Magufuli has been saying that his government will not tolerate anyone organising rallies and demonstrations because, according to him, elections are over and people should be working to deliver on their campaign pledges.

He has said that elected leaders may only hold rallies in the constituencies that elected them.

This would mean the current leader of the opposition, who is a constituency MP, can only carry out political action in his constituency and nowhere else. It also would mean that Magufuli himself, who was elected president of the whole country, can go anywhere he pleases in the country and “thank the voters” who elected him.

This is a bizarre restriction, to say the least. Almost all those who stood for the big prizes in last year’s election had people voting for them. Even my favourite cartoon character in his stupid attire garnered some votes, only regretting afterwards that they had not been enough to win him the presidency. He promised to work hard this time round to raise his tally, and he is probably right raring to go on the campaign trail, only there is this prohibition.

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So Magufuli can go out and campaign — because that is what he is doing every time he goes to the regions — but his opponents, who naturally want to oust him come 2020, are stopped, not by law, but by edict. That is what the opposition is refusing to accept, and that is what it is calling dictatorship.

When Chadema announced last Wednesday night that it had decided to put on hold its campaigns till a month later (October1), it came as a relief for many people.

Chadema’s chair Freeman Mbowe explained that the postponement will allow his party to complete its consultations with the clerical and civic organisations that have been trying to bring the two sides to the negotiation table.

But Mbowe said that despite his party’s readiness to bend over backwards to meet the government to settle the matter, the other side has not displayed any desire to talk, even when beseeched by the same religious and civic leaders who have been calling on Chadema to show restraint.

So, it is with bated breath that we stand on this cliff top.

By Thursday afternoon, as people round the country were goggling at the spectacular pictures of the eclipse of the sun from Mbeya, one had the right to ask oneself this set of questions:

If you order a politician to stop doing politics, even for a day, are you not in effect saying you are banning politics? And is that something you want to try?

And when you allow yourself to do the same thing that you are banning your rivals from doing, is that not the same thing as entering the boxing ring with an opponent who has his hands tied behind his back, and you are the referee and chief judge, having picked all the other judges into the bargain?

Leave that alone, and consider this little point. If someone in the political arena says they are combating “dictatorship,” they are saying something important, but it is not necessarily something that will unite everybody against the concept of dictatorship, no.

We have all heard in the past people saying that what our country needs is a dictator, “to make things move” as they say.

I would think that the answer to that quest is not to ban people from saying they are supporting or fighting dictatorship; rather it would be most useful to organise a grand debate between those who support dictatorship and those who oppose it, and see what our people choose.

And that can be done between now and October 1.

Jenerali Ulimwengu is chairman of the board of the Raia Mwema newspaper and an advocate of the High Court in Dar es Salaam. E-mail: [email protected]

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