On Sunday 20 March
2016, the re-run elections were held on the semi-autonomous islands of Zanzibar
off the Tanzanian coast. The October general election in Tanzania was to choose
the presidents and members of parliament of the two parts of the often rather
uncomfortable union. According to the terms of the union between Tanzania and
Zanzibar, the latter elects its own president, members of the House of
Representatives, councilors and also votes for the president of the union and
for union parliamentary seats. The mainland got a new president, John Magufuli,
and new members of parliament. In Zanzibar, the ruling Chama cha Mapinduzi
(CCM), which won on the mainland, faced strong competition from the opposition
Civic United Front (CUF), which traditionally enjoys wide support on the
islands. However, just three days after the elections and before the final
results were in, the polls on Zanzibar were declared null and void. This was a
unilateral ruling by the chairman of independent Zanzibar Electoral Commission
(ZEC) Jecha Salim Jecha in the middle of vote counting. The reason cited was
‘massive irregularities,’ even though regional and international observers
considered the elections ‘free and fair’ (enough). The opposition, which was
until then garnering a high number of votes, declared itself the winner and
accused the ruling party of election ‘rigging.’ The US and EU criticised the
annulment, and requested that vote counting proceed so the final results could
be determined. However, the Tanzanian government upheld the ZEC decision. The
fact that the ZEC chair is appointed by the president and a member of the
ruling CCM added weight to the opposition’s protests.
After fruitless
political dialogue with the opposition in the aftermath of the elections, the
government of Tanzania declared that the Zanzibar polls would be re-run.
However, the main opposition party, the CUF, which had previously been in the
government of national unity (GNU), and eight smaller opposition parties
refused to participate in the re-run. Nonetheless, preparations went ahead.
Moreover, the ZEC refused to remove the names of opposition candidates from the
ballot papers. Given the boycott, relatively few voters cast their votes for
the opposition. This made it appear that opposition support was exceptionally
low in these elections. In reality, most opposition supporters heeded the call
not to vote made by Maalim Seif Sharif Hamad, the CUF’s presidential candidate
and a vice president in the former GNU, and other opposition leaders.
Despite fears of
violence and protest, the actual election day passed without serious incident.
Instead of demonstrating, most opposition supporters, encouraged by their
leaders, stayed at home, several polling stations in opposition strongholds
reported no voters at all.
However, all was not
as calm as it appeared on the surface. In the week leading up to the elections,
there were many reports of violence by security forces against opposition
supporters, along with many videos and photos that were widely distributed on
social media. This violence was especially prevalent on Pemba Island, the
opposition’s main hub. There, as on Unguja Island, there was a heavy military
presence. Reporters who address the issue of heavy-handedness of the security
forces were arrested. There were, for example, reports claiming that the
government may have been supporting militias, so-called ‘Zombies,’ to use
violence to intimidate opposition supporters. The best known reporter
addressing these issues is Salma Said, reporting for Deutsche Welle.
She was held captive and assaulted until the elections were over. Several
opposition leaders were held in custody for several days and later released on
bail, but some are still being held for ‘questioning’ after they were accused
of insulting the incumbent by accusing him of inciting violence. Even the East
African Community’s election observers pointed out that heavy security presence
instilled fear among the voters.
The current political
situation is both curious and difficult. Certainly it does not reflect well on
democratic practice in Tanzania, even though the country is often praised as a
model of democratic progress in the region. It is evident that the real popular
will has not been reflected in these Zanzibar elections, despite claims to the
contrary by ‘the winners’ and the president of the Union.
Many questions remain:
Why were the October elections annulled in Zanzibar, even though international
observers viewed them as ‘free and fair’? This raises the further question of
whether the opposition was so far in the lead that the ruling party panicked?
Why hold an election re-run, the results of which could be predicted? Indeed,
this re-run has been nothing other than an expensive, futile exercise that
bears only a distant resemblance to democracy? Why were opposition candidates
left on the ballot papers? Were the votes of those who voted for the opposition
bought by the ruling party to lend a veneer of legitimacy to the elections and
to demonstrate low support for the opposition? And maybe most importantly, what
happens next?
Part of the underlying
problem is to be found in the failure to finalise important constitutional
reforms, despite promises to do so by the union’s former president, Jakaya
Mrisho Kikwete. Zanzibar’s GNU was set up after protracted peace talks
between the CCM and CUF in 2010. In the GNU, the president was chosen from the
party that won the election, but the first vice president was from the party
that comes second, provided it secures at least 10 per cent of the votes. The
results just announced by the ZEC show that CCM will be the sole party in the
new government, so there will no longer be a GNU, thus denying much of
Zanzibar’s population much needed representation. Fear of losing Zanzibar to
the opposition was aggravated after CCM won on the mainland. If the union
government was to be formed by two parties with different manifestos and
different ideologies, CCM would probably not be able to move ahead with the
policies it wanted to take forward for the whole union.
In addition, since
last year, there has been increased ethnic friction between people of African
and Arabic/Asian descent in Zanzibar due to these political differences. The people
of mixed race have been branded machotaras, which signifies
unwanted people within CCM structures, deemed to represent the colonisers prior
to the 1964 revolution. One slogan paraded by CCM read “Zanzibar is for
black Africans, not for machotaras.”
The re-run of
elections is also seen as an attempt to legitimate CCM power over Zanzibar by
using ‘democratic processes’ to maintain an undemocratic situation. After the
rerun, both the US and EU have called for peaceful negotiations between the
parties on the island as a way of guaranteeing democracy.
Quo vadis Zanzibar?
If there really is no
possibility of a new GNU, will the ruling party take over all power in
Zanzibar? If so, how will the people of Zanzibar react? In this complex and
potentially explosive situation, constitutional reform may be the only way
forward for both the isles and the mainland. Without it, President Magufuli’s
good work on the mainland in cutting public waste and fighting corruption will
be overshadowed by Zanzibar’s ungovernability. Thus, his attention may be
diverted from economic restructuring to endless and fruitless politicking,
which may spill over on to the mainland, and question his commitment to better
governance. This situation will also raise questions about Tanzania’s
status as a regional peace mediator.
Thus, Magufuli needs
to move ahead with constitutional reforms that will balance the structure of
the Union and address the political settlement in Zanzibar. He should also be
careful about engaging in politics that appear to integrate Zanzibar further
into the mainland politics, but should instead give it semi-autonomous status
so that all political players can equitably and democratically participate in
nation building and in forming a stronger union. It should not be forgotten
that despite its small size, Zanzibar was a totally independent and sovereign
state before the 1964 revolution, and is still not ready to be
‘swallowed’ by the Tanzanian union government.
By Sirkku
Hellsten, the Nordic Africa Institute and Masoud Nassor, the
University of Namibia.
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