Tanzania readies for polls after years of opposition ‘repression’
India returns soldier: China
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Dar es Salaam, Tanzania - Tundu Lissu, shot 16 times in an assassination attempt, returned to Tanzania to run for president - but he did not know what to expect after the ‘hell’ experienced by the opposition under President John Magufuli.
Political rallies had been banned for years, freedom of speech suffocated, opposition leaders killed, abducted and arrested. Lissu was worried for his own safety.
But the 52 year old has been amazed by the reaction as he crisscrosses the country to heaving crowds clamouring to see him. “After five years of repression, I was not expecting this kind of enthusiasm and mass support from the people,” he said.
He said the opposition has ‘gone through hell’, but believes his Chadema party will be the rightful winner of the October 28 presidential and parliamentary elections. However, like many observers, he believes it will not be a fair fight.
“There has not been one large event that has really thrown the free and fair moniker off of this
This file photo shows supporters of Tanzania’s ruling party Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) celebrating during the official launch of the party’s campaign for the general election at the Jamhuri stadium in Dodoma, Tanzania on August 29
election, it has been more a series of small things, death by a thousand cuts if you will,” a Western diplomat said.
“Whether it is a campaign event being disrupted by police, campaign officials being arrested for unknown reasons... the burning of Chadema offices... little things that add up.”
Tanzania has long been seen as a haven of stability in an otherwise volatile neighbourhood, but since Magufuli’s election in 2015 as a corruption-busting man of the people, alarm has grown over a perceived slide into autocracy.
Magufuli at first made wildly popular moves such as curbing
foreign travel for government officials or showing up in person to make sure civil servants were doing their work.
However Ringisai Chikohomero, a researcher with the Pretoria-based Institute for Security Studies said it was clear from the start that his approach ‘does not leave room for anyone to
question his methods’.
Then, Magufuli banned political rallies - saying it was time for work, not politics - and cut live coverage of parliament sessions.
A series of tough media laws were passed, arrests of journalists, activists and opposition members soared and several opposition members were killed.
When a local advocacy group published an opinion poll showing his popularity had plunged from 96 per cent at the beginning of his term to 55 per cent in 2018, its director had his passport confiscated and further polls were banned.
Nevertheless, Magufuli’s rallies - reflecting the slick capabilities of incumbency, with professionally printed banners, coordinated green outfits and performances by some of Tanzania’s best-loved musicians - have also drawn massive crowds.
He touts his expansion of free education, rural electrification and infrastructure projects such as railways, a hydropower dam set to double electricity output and the revival of the national airline.
“I will surprise you with more development projects if I win. What I did in the last five years is just peanuts,” he said at one rally.
“He has been tough enough to address corruption and create discipline in the public service,” said supporter Andrew Masanja.