Partisanship aside, who organised a proper conference: Chadema or CCM?
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.
Dar es Salaam-based political and social commentator
Partisanship aside, who organised a proper conference: Chadema or CCM?
The Tanzania political class was spoilt this past week, when it was presented with two distinctively different visions of how an electoral competition could look like.
The ruling party, CCM, and the main opposition party, Chadema, set out to show the world its organisational excellence as well as the policy options it was proposing before the national electorate come the general election next October.
Obviously, these two could not have demonstrated capabilities beyond what they were expected to have, and each had attributes proper to itself, in terms of capabilities, pros and cons.
For instance, Chadema—by its very nature and the role assigned it in the nature of things—could afford to bicker and haggle loudly over matters both policy-related and otherwise, whereas for the ruling party, room for disagreement was naturally very narrow and necessarily therefore muted.
Long before the conference opened at the Dar es Salaam Mlimani City Conference Centre, it was known that the chair of Chadema, Freeman Aikaeli Mbowe, had already locked horns with his vice-chair, Tundu Antipas Lissu, in a grim battle royal that looked irreconcilable and was likely going down to the wire.
Their disagreements—amplified by their lieutenants in various social for a —were on matters on which both men showed no inclination to compromise, even though several forces had tried to intervene to cool them down.
On the other hand, CCM presented the very picture of quiet and composure, all united behind President Samia Suluhu Hassan and her record in running the country since 2021, and a promise of more of the same under her stewardship.
In fact, it was on this point that the dissentions within Chadema were in part based: Whether to trust Freeman, who was being accused of being too cosy with Samia and her promise of reform, or Tundu, who was campaigning on a harder line with Samia, charging that she was not serious on what she had promised.
In the end, what had been feared about Chadema’s noisy campaigns – marred by vituperation and calumny, threatening even physical violence – did not materialise, and instead the observers at home and abroad saw an object lesson in how to organise such conferences.
All the credit goes to the whole Chadema bureaucracy, and Freeman himself, for seeing to it that the elections were as peaceful as they were fair.
Our national electoral commission, long discredited for cluelessness and lopsided judgment, might want to learn from Chadema.
There was space at the tail-end of the electoral process for the former antagonists to make their peace, vocally bury the hatchet and pledge to work together to continue strengthening Chadema with a view to dislodging CCM from power.
The new chair was now saddled with the various tasks of party chair, including filling the top positions in the party and stamping his authority on the structures, as every new chief must needs do.
So, what had started in a storm of accusations and counter-accusations ended in serenity and actually showed others just how to organise such an activity, especially in a charged atmosphere in which every one of the contestants claims the gospel truth and no one is prepared to take prisoners.
Of necessity, a comparison was bound to be made with the slightly different conference of the ruling party, which though physically very distant, it had a resonance with what was taking at Mlimani.
Quiet and serene, it was bound to be, because the voices that used to argue within that party were silenced a long time ago, and today – though I would not go as far as Tundu who calls CCM a “police and security service party” – the least one can say is that there is absolutely no argument there anymore.
This may be good “for show” but, in reality we know there are restless elements in there, who are grumbling in the dark but are scared of having the state forces unleashed on them, such as Police. Or TISS. Or Tanzania Revenue Authority. Or Immigration.
All these institutions have been weaponised in the past against those viewed as enemies of the state – which could be that one expressed an opinion different than that of a supposedly powerful figure, and that has been fatal for careers.
So, a lot of CCM “Young Turks” are lurking in the penumbra, licking their wounds and sharpening their claws, awaiting a chance to pounce.
But this “silence of the lambs” works in more detrimental ways than our rulers care to acknowledge, and it may work in many other nefarious ways for the future.
For instance, the CCM conference, chaired by Samia herself, was not an electoral conference called for the specific purpose of electing a candidate for president (as per the CCM constitution), but it ended purporting to do just that.
In face of the perceived illegality, someone got retired President Jakaya Kikwete to take the floor and help out, but even he couldn’t, instead suggesting that the many party lawyers be asked to set matters straight.
It won't be easy, nor will the fact that Samia chaired the conference that chose her to represent the party in this year's presidential election.
So, partisanship apart, who organised a proper conference here: Chadema or CCM?
Jenerali Ulimwengu is chairman of the board of the Raia Mwema newspaper and an advocate of the High Court in Dar es Salaam.
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