   |
|
misanet.com / SARDC, 9 November - Benjamin William Mkapa was sworn in at the National Stadium in Dar es Salaam Thursday for his second and last constitutional term as Tanzania's president at a brief, colourful ceremony attended by a number of invited regional leaders. For Tanzanians who also attended the ceremony or celebrated the overwhelming victory elsewhere in the million sq km country, it was a time for rejoicing as once again they had demonstrated their regional uniqueness. "We have shown southern Africa and the world that our votes cannot be bought by ethnic and religious political considerations and appeals," a Tanzanian political observer noted. Nevertheless, after the mismanagement of the elections five years ago, mainland Tanzanians are clearly irritated that Zanzibaris have again soiled their image by failing to run their own elections properly. Mkapa increased his majority from the 61.8 percent of the popular vote at his first election in 1995 to 71.7 percent this time. Importantly, he did so without the endorsement of Tanzania's founding president Julius Kambarage Nyerere, who died a little over a year ago. The ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) party devastated the opposition taking all but nine of the 181 constituency seats on the mainland. In the last elections the opposition had won 22 of the mainland seats. As they had done in 1995, the opposition political parties once again tried to appeal to ethnic and religious roots. One opponent spoke in the local vernacular at two campaign rallies. But in the event, his overtures were rejected and the CCM also regained two of the six seats it had lost in the Chagga ethnic heartland around Kilimanjaro in 1995. There had been fears that religious appeals, notably by the CUF party, both of whose candidates on the presidential ballot were Muslims, would make greater inroads. About one-third of Tanzania's 32 million people are Muslims who live mainly along the coast. But the CCM won almost all the coastal seats. Zanzibar flaw On the main southern island of Unguja and on the small neighbouring island of Tumbatu, the CCM won all 29 constituencies. This gave the CCM candidate, Amani Abeid Karume, 67 percent of the popular vote and he was sworn in as the island's president on Wednesday. Inevitably, particularly in the light of the historically uninformed and unhelpful statements by Commonwealth and Southern African Development Community (SADC) observers, eyebrows will be raised at the outcome of the Zanzibar elections. There were, however, clear signs that Karume, whose father emerged as the island's first African leader after the 1964 revolution which ousted the Arab minority (the second largest minority in Africa after the whites of South Africa), would win the presidency replacing the CCM incumbent, Dr Salmin Amour. The younger Karume, then a cabinet minister, had stood alone in refusing to persecute and repatriate senior Pemba officials from his office when all other ministers did so following the 1995 CCM electoral humiliation. It was also widely known on Zanzibar that many of the younger Karume's own family had previously been members of CUF and his mother, who has strong roots in Pemba, had assiduously campaigned for him on the northern island. Zanzibaris were also more conscious this time of the implications of the United Republic of Tanzania created in 1964 by Nyerere and Karume senior. They recognised that a vote for CUF could prejudice the future of the union upon which Zanzibar is economically heavily dependent. The island's 27,000 civil servants knew that it was Mkapa and not the CUF presidential candidate on the island's, Seif Shariff Hamad, who had paid their salaries in recent months and that a vote for CUF could jeopardise this arrangement because Serif was ambivalent about the future of the union. The integrity of Nyerere and Mkapa, the latter having skillfully backed down Amour from running for a third unconstitutional term as the island's president, was better known than it had been five years ago. Creek Road in Zanzibar Town which separates the former African and Arab dwellings, had even been renamed after Mkapa. But the final psychological clincher for many voters was that Karume junior had been opposed to some of Amour's policies and had been opposed by the increasingly unpopular Amour as the CCM candidate. In a curious sense Amour 's opposition became an asset for Karume. Western donors made it clear in private that they recognised that a win in the island's presidential race by Seif spelled disaster for the union. Karume junior spoke in reconciliatory terms at his subsequent inauguration indicating that the 18 CUF members held for over two years on treason charges would be freed in the next few days. Such reconciliation may go even further. Karume junior, unlike his predecessor, may include some CUF members in those he nominates to the island's assembly in the next few days and it is clear that he and Mkapa can work together to turn Zanzibar's economic malaise around. While we wait for Bush or Gore... At the end of it all Zanzibaris are looking for a president who offers reconciliation and prosperity to the impoverished islanders whose main export earner comes from seaweed farming and not cloves. In Mkapa's economic achievements on the mainland, and in his ability to work with By David Martin, Southern African Research and Documentation Centre (SARDC)
|
