Tanzania poll campaigns: What next after the clown make-up is wiped off?
Friday September 25 2020
Residents queue before vote at a polling station during the local elections in the town of Arusha, north Tanzania, on November 24, 2019. PHOTO | FILBERT RWEYEMAMU | AFP
These election campaigns are not motivating me, which I felt slightly guilty until I met everyone else who also has poll fatigue. It turns out that when campaigns are dedicated mostly to either denigrating the competition or trying to swell attendance at rallies by playing Singeli and other fresh music for the youth, non-youth audience can and will tune out.
It is strange to be part of an election whose outcomes are unapologetically predictable.
There are highlights here and there. Feisty lawyers are actively involved in this year’s campaigns, and if there is one thing lawyers can do — it’s use the law against themselves. Thank goodness. A large part of the joy of following politics is watching people play the game with skill and finesse, not just brute force.
Back to this election fatigue: it is a worry. Yes, by virtue of this nation being at least 50 years old there are a lot of new faces on the ballot, candidates throwing their hat in the ring at lower levels of the political machine, in the civil service, bidding to get a chance to serve their country — and themselves, that’s a given. Many of them are even under 60.
Even this cannot mask the fact that manifestos seem an empty formality at this point. It is clear we’re not going to talk about the immediate relief of pressing issues such as whether we’re actually going to make it through a non-violent election, and why is our economy in the ICU?
Having waited these long years for people of this era who understand the intricate challenges of the immediate future, as well as the continuities with the past, is draining me. As my ears are assaulted with party slogans and cheers, by the way, nobody should have to involuntarily listen to that much Singeli in one sitting, it occurred to me that at this point the rehearsal has gone on too long.
Who are we convincing of anything? Where is the good stuff, also known as live televised political debates? I haven’t met a single fellow citizen who is in doubt about what their political leanings are. Yet we’re spending all this money on gathering all these people and advertising. Have we mistaken form for function? Sure, there is money in elections but it is not economy-stimulating money. It’s just going to accumulate in strange pockets.
When the party is over and the clown make-up is wiped off, will Tanzania feel like a night club during the daylight hours? Grim.
Maybe I am just getting old. Or maybe I am just expressing the dread that so many of us feel at the sheer anger, armament and aggression. Elections have always been a big deal, but they have never felt this much like preparations for something more than a long day spent in line with fellow citizens trying to do our civic duty.
We haven’t quite decided what Tanzania is in the early 21st century but we are already gearing up to fight each other over its control.
The thing that unites us has never felt more like the thing that divides us, and all the pretty concerts in the world cannot gloss over this fact.