An emerging split among Tanzania’s main opposition parties over the continued incarceration of Chadema leader Freeman Mbowe appears to have dampened hopes of cooperation, as they explore a joint drive for a new national constitution and independent electoral commission.

A conference on multiparty democracy in Tanzania in Dodoma on December 15-17 came up with resolutions towards speeding up these and other burning issues in 2022, including legislation on equal rights for all political parties and removal of police restrictions to political rallies.

But officials of the Chadema and ACT-Wazalendo parties became embroiled in heated exchanges over Mbowe, who is on trial on terrorism-related charges.

ACT-Wazalendo party leader Zitto Kabwe, who is also the chairperson of the Tanzania Centre for Democracy (TCD) which co-hosted the event, sought to adopt a reconciliatory tone in asking chief guest President Samia Suluhu to exercise her influence “using all legal channels” in getting the charges against Mbowe and his co-accused dropped.

President Samia was subtle and guarded in her response, saying that in Mbowe’s case “if you have broken the law you lose the respect of the government and others, although forgiveness is also an option”.

However, Chadema leaders reacted angrily to Zitto’s choice of words and method of appeal to the president, claiming that he sounded more like he was “apologising” on behalf of Mbowe and “begging” for his release.

“The president can only forgive people who are convicted of committing a crime. She has no authority to forgive people over trumped-up cases like this one. We want her to simply scrap the charges against Mr Mbowe without any conditions whatsoever since he is still merely a suspect,” said Tundu Lissu, Chadema’s vice chairman, who is currently in exile in Belgium.

According to Zitto, all he had tried to do was “hammer the point (of Mbowe’s release) home in a humble manner so that the authorities neither feel ambushed nor embarrassed.” He added that he had consulted with Mbowe on a visit on December 9.

“Mr Mbowe never asked for forgiveness and neither did I ask for forgiveness for him. The dispute on this is a matter of interpretation which I have no control of,” he said.

According to political observers, this opposition squabble places the ruling CCM party in a winning position.

“It is definitely [working] to CCM’s advantage if the overriding aim within the party is to keep stalling the constitutional reform process. Both Chadema and ACT-Wazalendo have been and probably still are victims of the same repressive political system and yet here they are attacking each other,” said Alex Karugendo, a student at Mwenge Catholic University in Moshi.

Mbowe’s trial has dragged on for the past four months and was adjourned on Monday to January 10.

‘Alternative’ leadership

Both Chadema and the NCCR-Mageuzi party boycotted last week’s Dodoma meeting citing dissatisfaction with the current state of political freedom in the country and President Samia’s failure to fulfill a pledge to convene a roundtable meeting with all opposition parties or hold separate one-on-one meetings with each with the aim of ironing out differences from the Magufuli years.

CCM legislators Humphrey Polepole and Josephat Gwajima have emerged as the most vocal, trashing efforts by the current government to deal with the pandemic.

Polepole, who was the ruling party spokesman under Magufuli, also started an online TV programme to offer lessons in “alternative” public leadership.

The Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority on December 17 suspended Polepole’s controversial ‘Shule ya Uongozi’ programme aired through his private YouTube channel on grounds that it was offering unbalanced content that “unfairly criticised” the government’s Covid-19 vaccination drive, handling of the national debt and petty traders.

CCM’s highest level decision-making organ, the central committee chaired by President Samia herself, followed this up the following day (December 18) with a statement saying it had met to discuss the Polepole and Gwajima matters and would summon both of them, along with another perceived CCM ‘rebel’ MP Jerry Silaa, for disciplinary hearings on dates to be announced later.