Mr Zitto Kabwe (right) and Dr Kitila Mkumbo address a news conference
in Dar es Salaam last week after the Chadema top brass stripped them of
leadership positions within the party.
PHOTO | FILE
Power
struggles have bedevilled the country’s major opposition parties since
the maiden multiparty General Election of 1995, they say. The current
crisis in the main opposition party, Chadema which has led to demotion
of Zitto Kabwe, the fiery MP for Kigoma North, is no exception. It
follows the common scrip already played in other parties, namely
NCCR-Mageuzi, CUF and TLP.
Mr
Kabwe has been removed from the posts of deputy secretary general,
deputy leader of the Official Opposition in Parliament and shadow
minister for Finance following accusation of sabotaging the party. He
is awaiting the final verdict that could see him being stripped of his
Chadema membership.
The
decision to kick out Mr Kabwe and two others, namely Dr Kitila Mkumbo
and the then Chadema Arusha regional chairman, Mr Samsom Mgamba came
less than a year to Chadema’s intra-party election. The party is
expected to hold elections later this month ahead of its general
election slated for June 23 to 30 next year.
Analysts
say lack of internal democracy and weak foundations could be the
opposition’s undoing. Mr Emmanuel Mallya, a political scientist at the
Open University of Tanzania wonders why some parties have had the same
chairperson since their establishment.
“Look at the UDP; it has been led by one person since its inception,” he notes.
The
CUF has had, since 1991, only three chairs to date – James Mapalala,
Musobi Mageni (the late) and the incumbent Prof Ibrahim Lipumba.
Chadema has been chaired by founders Mr Edwin Mtei, Mr Bob Makani (the
late) and the incumbent Freeman Mbowe while TLP has known only two
national chairs. CCM too has had only three chairs since multi-partysm
emerged. “This shows that most of our politicians are power hungry,”
sums up Mr Mallya.
The
Chadema crisis is attributed to lack of democracy within the party. The
Kabwe camp argues that he is the victim of power-mongering within his
party.
Mr
Kabwe supports school of thought too. “Intra-party democracy has been a
huge challenge in Tanzania and this is a consequence of result of over
three decades of single-party mentality as per the CCM clarion call of
“Zidumu Fikra za Mwenyekiti’ (Kiswahili for “Long live chairman’s
thoughts),” he told The Citizen in an interview over the weekend.
He mentions the Chadema decision to scrap term limits for party leadership as vindication of his argument.
According
to him, the initial Chadema Constitution set term limits and the
decision to remove that was done by party founders in a 2006 amendment.
“Term
limits give a party the chance to grow through leadership development.
Different members have different ideas on how to bring the party
forward,” he said via email.
But reacting to removal of term limits within Chadema, national
chairman Mbowe told The Citizen that internal democracy isn’t just
about term limits.
“Being
an opposition party chair isn’t an easy task and I will be more than
happy to hand over the position to another person provided that the
Constitution is adhered to; but I will continue to serve as long as
party members want me to,” he says.
But
in addition to lack of democracy, weak foundations could also be to
blame, according to analysts. According to Mr Bashiru Ally, a political
science lecturer at the University of Dar es Salaam, the upheaval in
Chadema shows that it has, like most of the other opposition parties,
fragile base. “If a sense of institutionalisation was there, it would
have provided for intra-party conflict resolution and management
mechanism to solve any differences,” said Mr Ally referring to Chadema
decision to relieve Mr Kabwe of his posts.
He added that due to lack of institutional framework most political parties “are being run as private companies.”
The NCCR-Mageuzi secretary-general Mr Samuel Ruhuza wants political parties to take conflicts as challenges to be overcome.
“Most
of us were used to a single party system where the chairman’s word was
final... in trying to change that, we have ended up in serious
wrangling, but I can assure you it’s not only the Opposition that has
intra-party fights; CCM has problems too,” says Mr Ruhuza. The reason
for stripping Mr Wangwe of his position according to the Chadema CC
which sat in Dodoma in August 2008 was that the late Wangwe was leaking
the party’s sensitive information to CCM.
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