Tundu Lissu’s tough task after wresting Chadema from Freeman Mbowe
Chadema’s newly elected chairman Tundu Lissu addresses party delegates shortly after being declared the winner on January 22, 2025 in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
Tanzania’s main opposition party Chadema on Wednesday elected firebrand politician Tundu Lissu as its new leader, taking over from supremo Freeman Mbowe in a momentous change of guard aimed at reinvigorating the party against independence monolith Chama cha Mapinduzi.
Lissu, previously the party’s vice-chair and Mbowe’s deputy, secured 51.4 percent of the vote against Mbowe’s 48.2 percent in a tightly contested race that was decided overnight by party delegates in Dar es Salaam.
The internal election outcome announced early Wednesday morning after a vote count that stretched through the night ended Mbowe’s 21-year reign at the helm of the party and he was gracious in defeat, calling on Chadema members and supporters to stay united in the face of a potentially tumultuous aftermath.
His response was particularly poignant in the wake of a bruising campaign battle characterised by vicious verbal exchanges between the two opposition heavyweights and among their respective supporters, which threatened to split the party in the lead-up to the polls.
Lissu, 56, with a reputation of an unapologetic militant, is expected to take Chadema to the next level in pushing for constitutional and electoral reforms in the face of resistance from the ruling CCM.
A major factor in his victory over 63-year-old Mbowe was a pledge to reintroduce hardnosed tactics in demanding these changes in the few months before the general election in October, and doing away with the detente approach that Mbowe has increasingly favoured in recent years in dealing with CCM.
Among Lissu’s immediate tasks will be to come up with new strategies for the party to regain its presence in a parliament dominated by CCM, if not to wrest the presidency itself from the ruling party in October.
But this will not be easy in the face of CCM’s alleged manipulation of both the last general election in 2020 and the more recent municipal polls in November 2024, where it posted massive victories of more than 90 percent, amid widespread claims of electoral fraud.
Mbowe was initially seen as a shoo-in in the duel with his deputy on the back of his influence within Chadema built over two decades of incumbency, amid claims that he also had the tacit backing of CCM, to the “volatile” Lissu.
But, over the weeks leading up to the party’s general assembly, Lissu managed to buck early perceptions that he had bitten off more than he could chew in challenging the entrenched party boss for the top seat.
His main campaign strategy of exposing cracks in Mbowe’s governance style, such as his failure to introduce leadership term limits over the years and laissez-faire attitude towards bribery in lower-level party elections, eventually paid off as increasing numbers of the party’s faithful appeared to switch their allegiance to him as the election day neared.
But he will be hard-pressed to placate the majority of zonal leaders, who openly sided with Mbowe, especially if post-election predictions of potential CCM-led attempts to undermine his power within the party become a reality.
The election of John Heche, one of his strongest supporters, over Mbowe ally Ezekia Wenje as the new party vice-chair will be of big help in this endeavour.
There are also concerns among democratic reform proponents that the messy and protracted Lissu-Mbowe power wrangle, which saw a lot of Chadema’s dirty linen washed in public, may have done irreparable damage to public acceptance of the party as a credible alternative to CCM going forward.
One way to hasten the mending of internal fences, to begin with, would be to make Mbowe the party’s presidential candidate in the upcoming general election, an option he was earlier offered by a section of Lissu’s supporters if he agreed to remove himself from the chairmanship race before the vote took place.
In a statement issued on Sunday - two days before the election - a group of pro-Lissu chairmen from 25 regions said they were willing to back Mbowe for the presidential ticket “in order to protect his legacy as the leader responsible for building this party for so many years.”
“Lissu himself has said he is ready to support a Mbowe presidential challenge. We do not fear the ballot box but if he makes things simpler by voluntarily opting out of the (party chairmanship) race before the voting begins on Tuesday, we won’t waste time in launching a reciprocal campaign for his endorsement as our presidential candidate,” they said in a statement.
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