by Priscilla Mnganya and Phyllis Johnson – SANF 05 no 46
Tanzania’s governing party is preparing for national elections in six months time by naming its presidential candidate and drafting an ambitious election manifesto based on economic growth and poverty reduction.
In a carefully considered process that involved the selection of one man from a field of 11, based on qualities such as the ability to promote and protect national unity, peace and stability and boldness in fighting injustice and oppression, the ruling party, Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) selected its next leader and presidential candidate for the 30 October elections.
He is Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete, 54, the current Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation.
In the previous CCM leadership contest in 1995, Kikwete ran a close second to the current Tanzanian president, Benjamin William Mkapa.
Ten years after he emerged from the party youth wing to contest the leadership for the first time, Kikwete stayed the course to win the nomination in a majority decision of an Extraordinary General Meeting of the party in Dodoma on 4 May.
Each competing candidate had to submit nomination papers by 15 April containing 250 signatures of CCM members in at least 10 regions of the country, including two from Zanzibar.
The selection process involved deliberations of the party Central Committee and its ethics committee to reduce the 11 contestants to five, followed by a vote in the National Executive Committee (NEC) to further reduce the number to three.
The 1,675 delegates to the Extraordinary General Meeting then voted for the candidate of their choice and, urged by their President to choose a candidate who could appeal to the youth, gave Kikwete a clear majority with 1,072 votes in the first round, avoiding the need for a run-off.
Soon after receiving his party’s nomination, Kikwete pledged to implement the CCM manifesto which prioritises the fast-tracking of economic development to achieve 10 percent growth in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 2010, up from the current 6.7 percent.
The manifesto, which contains a number of ambitious economic projects and gives priority to scientific research and development as well as tourism, also calls for an active front in the fight against poverty.
“We should adhere to the call by the Father of the Nation, Mwalimu Nyerere, that we must run while others walk,” the manifesto says, echoing a famous statement by the founding president, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, that became the title of a well-known biography.
Now the CCM candidate, Kikwete has promised to maintain Tanzania’s record of national unity, democracy and good governance.
The youthful-looking Kikwete is a well-known international figure, described as uncorruptable and charismatic, with a self-assurance more well-defined than that of the incumbent.
A Muslim from the coastal constituency of Chalinze, north of Dar es Salaam, Kikwete has won the confidence of most religious groupings in a secular country that fiercely protects and supports the rights of all religions.
In Tanzania, a society has been constructed in which an individual’s religion is a private matter of spiritual development and not a factor that describes or divides his or her friendships and political alliances.
The party has named the current vice-president, Dr Ali Mohamed Shein, as Kikwete’s running mate. They will face the candidates of other parties in the 30 October election, including Professor Ibrahim Lipumba and Juma Duni Haji of the Civic United Front (CUF), the main opposition party.
Amani Abeid Karume, the president of Zanzibar, easily won the nomination as CCM candidate to lead the islands for a second term. Zanzibar has its own president, with no jurisdiction over the mainland, and the incumbent was returned unopposed as the party candidate to contest the elections in Zanzibar on the same date.
The inspiration of the founding president of Tanganyika and the United Republic of Tanzania was apparent in the run-up to the deliberations surrounding the selection of the CCM candidate. Mwalimu Nyerere’s speeches were given significant airtime on national radio during the weeks before the party meeting, reminding the nation of the qualities of a good leader.
And then, at the Dodoma meeting, a hush fell over the delegates, followed by gasps and a wave of astonished laughter, when there emerged on-stage a slight man with greying hair, carrying a walking stick – a well-turned out look-alike of the popular leader who died in 1999.
The challenge for the next Tanzanian president to be elected on 30 October 2005 is to maintain the peace and stability prevailing in the country (despite conflicts on its borders), while at the same time sustaining the momentum of economic growth that has been realised under President Mkapa’s leadership. (SARDC)
