Lissu vs Mbowe, again? Not so good for our hope for change

Four years ago, to wit, during the national general election, the two were part of a troika of postulants for presidential candidate, the third being Lazaro Nyalandu. Lissu emerged victorious in an internal process that went so smoothly some people were baffled.

But that was then and now is now, and as they say, in politics a week is too long a time, let alone four years. In addition, tongues have been wagging that all is not well between Chadema’s top two leaders, and there have been unconfirmed reports that a number of meetings have been undertaken by some confessional leaders and other prominent citizens with a view to reconciling the two, but to no avail.

What is more, a couple of months ago Lissu had declared he was going to seek reelection as vice chair, so it came as a surprise that he decides now to throw in his hat for the topmost spot.

Some observers have noted that the chemistry between the two just did not seem to work, and that there were discernible tensions brewing just under the surface.

A lot of people are worried — and they have cause to be — especially those among Tanzanians and others who wish to see a meaningful opposition to the lumbering Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM), whose long incumbency has weighed it down with debilitating corruption and deadening intellectual and political decadence.

Chadema was seen by many as a young and vibrant alternative, capable of providing a credible alternative. In that sense it would be sad if that prospective salutary vessel were to be shipwrecked on the iceberg of the incompatible personal ambitions of the captain and his coxswain or second mate.

Since Tanzania reentered competitive politics in the 1990s, the sailing has never been smooth, basically because CCM has refused to allow space for the young fledgling parties to grow in stature and make any meaningful contribution to the constitutional and economic progress of the country, suffering a long and sterile incumbency, CCM has morphed into a bureaucratic appendage of the state security departments on which it depends to impose its will, and not on popular suation, which it lost since no one can remember.

One needs to remember that this is a party that used to declare itself a “liberation party” in tandem with the other liberation movements in Africa, such as the African National Congress of South Africa, Zanu and Zapu of Zimbabwe and Swapo of Namibia.

As we witness the wilting and withering of these old liberation movements so do we see the crumbling of Tanzania’s ruling party and its increasing leaning on security organs as the only props to keep it standing.

A current worrying trend has been its recent abject failure to participate in local-level elections, which were taken over by the police and security bodies in acts of naked rigging that even the worst riggers of Africa have never seen.

From time to time the rulers of Tanzania receive jolting fallouts from outside the country, whether it be the defeat of erstwhile incumbents in Botswana, or a defeated government in Ghana, or the popular post-election resistance against a stolen election in Mozambique, and all this plants terror in the bosoms of our rulers.

Strangely, instead of taking these developments as wake-up calls for them to make amends and to do the right thing, they double down, dig in and hunker down in an apparent belief that what happens to the others will never happen to them. Yet the wheels of history grind on, silently, inaudibly and imperceptibly.

Read: Ally Kibao, abducted Tanzanian opposition leader found dead, acid poured on face

Tanzania is certainly in a very bad place today, with more and more people feeling the threat of insecurity, after a spate of kidnappings, abductions and killings, all accompanied by a shocking official nonchalance and insouciance never seen in the country.

It would look like the poor people of this country are up bleak creek without a paddle, and they need all the support they can find, and a strong opposition party would not be too much to ask for.

It is certainly hardly the time for the top people in an organisation that would be the redeemer of its people to be seen to squabble and quarrel when they have work to do.

The old Marxian school, by which some of us were weaned—fortunately, I might add – wants leadership to possess the faculty of telling what is fundamental and what is peripheral, what is primary and what secondary, what is principal and what subsidiary.

We need to understand that whatever it is today need not be the same thing tomorrow and that what looks like it is trivial in one set of circumstances may change its character in a different set of circumstances and become major, (and vice versa), and that no set of circumstances is permanent.

Consequently, all are called upon to be forever vigilant and nimble, with the savvy and sensitiveness to all that is happening in the neighbourhood of their socio-political moorings in which we evolve.

Otherwise Freeman and Tundu could, unwittingly, become our traitors.

Jenerali Ulimwengu is chairman of the board of the Raia Mwema newspaper and an advocate of the High Court in Dar es Salaam.