A very curious case recently emerged in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania's commercial capital. On 23 August of this year, Dezydelius Patrick Mgoya, a self-proclaimed 'peasant farmer,’ filed a constitutional petition seeking the High Court's 'proper interpretation' of the provisions of Tanzania's Constitution, which limit the tenure of office of the president to two five-year terms. Mr. Mgoya claimed that the presidential term limit is inconsistent with the constitutional right to participate in public affairs through elections to public office, in this case the office of the President of the United Republic. Notwithstanding its suspect legal merits, the petition raises an aspect of presidential power that had been previously settled in Tanzania – or so we thought.
The presidential system of government was introduced with the Republican Constitution of 1962. For the twenty-three years that followed, President Mwalimu Julius Nyerere ruled the country with near absolute control. Nyerere was, however, aware of the dangers of the vast powers he wielded. As he prepared to leave office in 1985, therefore, he sought to limit the powers of the 'Imperial Presidency' he had up until then presided over.
For the next thirty years, presidential term limits in Tanzania largely held. Then, in 2015, President John Pombe Magufuli ascended to power. Soon, this issue was being raised in ruling party circles and in friendly domestic media outlets. For his part, Magufuli has publicly anguished over the possibility that his ambitious project to 'make Tanzania great again,’ may not be continued by his successor, thus hinting that term limits issue must be revisited. This is a dangerous development for Tanzania.
Since coming to power, Magufuli has remade our country’s politics, its economy and society which has been breathtaking in scope and brutal in its execution. Magufuli immediately declared war on Tanzania’s multiparty democracy. Early on, at the 39th anniversary of the ruling party in February 2016, Magufuli told the nation that he would see to it that there would be no opposition political parties by the next general elections in October 2020. Towards that end, political activities, such as public meetings, rallies and demonstrations by opposition parties, have been banned countrywide.
As a result, both CHADEMA and ACT Wazalendo, two of the country's largest opposition movements have since been threatened with deregistration. Hand in hand with this 'shrinking of the democratic space', the Magufuli regime has unleashed a vicious crackdown on political leaders, activists and ordinary party members. Political murders, disappearances and torture of political opponents or critics of the regime, have become common in a country that had been relatively peaceful for decades.
Today, for instance, the entire national leadership of CHADEMA, including dozens of members of Parliament, are facing a bewildering array of criminal charges, arising almost entirely from their opposition to Magufuli’s repression. In the one year before he was shot 16 times in broad daylight in a September 2017 assassination attempt, this author was arrested and charged with sedition and other related offences on six different occasions. These charges remain hanging over my head today.
As part of his broader strategy, President Magufuli has systematically destroyed any basis for, and the possibility of, free and fair elections. He has stacked the National Election Commission and the entire electoral system with party loyalists. He has also repeatedly and personally, instructed election supervisors, under the pain of summary dismissal, to not declare CCM opponents winners in any future elections.
As I write this today, word is coming in that thousands of CHADEMA and ACT Wazalendo candidates have been disqualified across the country in the local elections slated for later this month. This a dress rehearsal for the general elections set for October 2020. If the regime, despite its overwhelming advantages, cannot countenance any electoral competition – even at the lowest levels of government – it is hard not to conclude that there is no possibility of a democratic transfer of power at any level in Tanzania.
What we have, therefore, is the re-emergence of the authoritarian state that was the hallmark of the first three decades of Tanzania’s postcolonial history. Its chief characteristic is the Imperial Presidency – that is to say, a presidential power unconstrained by any meaningful checks and balances. In such a state, elections cease to be a mechanism for obtaining and legitimating state power to citizens. Instead, elections become a charade, with power flowing from the president on down to the lowest levels of government in cascading networks of political patronage and cronyism.
This is indeed what we see happening in Tanzania today. In doing so, Magufuli is travelling down a well-trodden path. In East Africa more broadly, only Tanzania and Kenya have thus far maintained term limits in their constitutions. The aging dictators sitting in office in Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi, for example, have all deleted them from their constitutions, paving the way for unimpeded and wholly corrupt power to be wielded by one sole individual, at the expense of the nation.
Having faced few international consequences or condemnation – and receiving only applause from their regional counterparts – for panning their constitutional safeguards, it now appears to be Magufuli’s turn. In light of these facts, the developments in Tanzania are not surprising.
In the interim, and moving forward, the crimes being perpetrated by the Magufuli regime should be exposed internationally and accordingly punished through political and diplomatic isolation, as well as through targeted sanctions on the worst human rights abusers. Multilateral and bilateral agreements between Tanzania and the democratic world — as well as support from relevant financial institutions — should also be tied to a respect for democratic principles, respect for human rights, good governance and free and fair elections. Only with the goodwill and support of our democratic allies across the world can we successfully climb out of this anti-democratic ditch being dug by our president and the sycophants surrounding him.
Honorable Tundu Lissu is a Tanzanian Member of Parliament, as well as the Attorney General and Central Committee member for CHADEMA, and the Chief Whip of the Official Opposition in Tanzania's Parliament. Hon. Lissu is a longtime activist for democracy and human rights in Tanzania, and a practicing attorney. Between 2016 and July 2017, he was repeatedly arrested, unjustly detained and charged in court with arbitrary crimes due to his criticism of the ruling government. In September 2017, Lissu was targeted in a failed assassination attempt, suffering 16 bullet wounds The attack remains unsolved and no suspects have been identified nor any arrests made.
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