By ELSIE EYAKUZE

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Just a couple of weeks after commenting on Edward Lowassa’s return to the warm folds of the ruling Chama cha Mapinduzi and trying to figure out this new political landscape, another tectonic shift has taken place.

Maalim Seif of the Zanzibari party, Civic United Front, has defected to the newest kid on the block, ACT-Wazalendo. And the show begins again: There are concerns that ACT could repeat the mistake that Chadema made and promote a relative outsider above its loyal ranks for political expedience, and the expected dose of harassment by organs of the state.

When Mr Lowassa defected so spectacularly from CCM to Chadema and ran as their presidential candidate, it was quite the watershed moment.

So what do we make of this new move? Cynically, is it all political expedience? Mourn a little bit for CUF, which has been a bastion of unrelenting defiance against the CCM-dominated government and has done incredible work in not only defending but also promoting Zanzibari autonomy?

Or sit back and consider the situation, maybe do a little speculating about what this might mean for next year’s general election?

I have watched Mr Seif concede very questionable defeats in the polls not once, but twice. Arguably to preserve the peace in the Isles in a situation that is far more volatile than the easygoing ways of the Zanzibaris may suggest.

It made an impression on this Mainlander: The ability, let alone willingness, to stand down in order to prevent possible bloodshed is not a quality our leaders possess.

Putting the welfare of the many above the demands of presidential ambition left an impression on this Mainlander. The images of military personnel shutting down Stone Town and forcing residents into a lockdown during the vote counting process in 2015 are indelible.

CUF is a liberal party, ACT-Wazalendo’s Wikipedia page (which is terrible, by the way) purports that they are into Ujamaa, which is a very lefty kind of set of principles.

Mr Lowassa went from a socialist party to a centre-right party before bouncing back to the left. This is evidence that ideology has no place in our electoral politics.

We have inherited the form, but we are not particularly interested in the content, leaving us wide open to a brand of politics driven by personalities and naked power struggles with little room for policy debate.

So, our democracy is broken. I am surprisingly okay with that, being a proponent of independent candidates.

In this particular instance, the CUF-ACT merger seems to fill the vacuum left by Chadema’s decimation in the past three years — and this is just one of many effects we have yet to fully grasp.

This suits me just fine because if all goes well we may just have two or three relatively strong opposition parties to challenge the ruling party.

This doesn’t matter in the least at the presidential level, but it could give us back our parliament, and if Mr Seif’s defection contributes to that in any way then I am again grateful for his political savvy. Politicians don’t have to be perfect: They have to be socially useful.

Elsie Eyakuze is a consultant and blogger for The Mikocheni Report. E-mail: [email protected]