The Elections are Coming Up

The presidential elections are coming up this weekend in Tanzania. Everyone was expecting it to be fairly peaceful, but now there are rumours that there might be some conflicts on Sunday.

The ruling party, called the CCM, has been in power ever since independence. Although no one expects the presidential position to be won by other parties, most people would tell me that there would be a shift towards more MPs from other parties. People are tired of the CCM. People want change and here was a one-in-five year chance for change. Currently about 70% of MPs are from the CCM. The oppositional parties are numerous but weak while divided. Some say that if only the opposition would unite, there would be a chance to kick CCM off the majority, but who knows?

Incidents that I’ve heard about the elections:

The CCM has employed a “security force” of something like 100 horses and 200 dogs (with people of course). And maybe they’ve employed many unemployed youth to make trouble. Hence the prediction that Sunday might result in some conflict.

The University of Dar es Salaam has been closed until the elections are over. Here, you can’t vote outside of the place you registered. So if you registered at the university because you were living there, you can’t vote at your home village. The problem with closing the university is that the students can’t go and live in the dorms. That makes voting difficult, because they would have to travel all the way from their home town/village to vote and then go back. Travelling is expensive for many. Plus, the student loans are dispensed until after the elections, so no money to travel. Oh yes, and it so happens that most of the academic community doesn’t want to vote CCM. Deliberate sabotage? Well maybe. I was talking to a professor on the long distance bus the other day and he said that just as many students have registered in their home villages/towns instead of the university. So if they open the university, just as many people won’t be able to vote. So who knows?

My roommate interviews lots of the urban farmers. One group in particular is really near my office and their leaders are really nice. They were all decked out in CCM gear and handing out CCM pamphlets the other day. So my roommate asked them. “Why do you still support CCM when they’re the party that won’t give you secure land tenure?” The answer surprised me: “If we don’t show our support now (or we show support to an oppositional party), once the CCM wins (and they will, at least for the presidential position), they would marginalize us even more.” I guess, growing up in a very privileged society, I had never thought about repercussions for my stances on politics. So much to consider here. But when my roommate asked Mama Maria who she’ll be voting yesterday, Mama Maria just smiled and said “who I’ll be voting will be in my heart.”

I recently travelled back (for 1.5 days…) to my “home” village, i.e., the village I stayed at last year in the Uluguru Mountains. I was so happy to be back there I almost didn’t want to leave. But that’s a whole other post by itself. Anyways, the whole village was wrapped up in election fever, as with everywhere else I assume. Interestingly, most people I was talking to wanted the opposition party to win, and they were openly supporting the Chadema (there are only two candidates for Ward councillor – one from CCM and one from Chadema). I know the CCM ward councillor, she’s been in power for a long time and she’s not the most pleasant and helpful person. I interviewed her and tried to get her support for the dairy goat project for orphans. It is rumoured that because she didn’t like the project coordinator, she was using her political power to stall the project progress. Anyways, so I was told that even though in reality Chadema is a really small party, most CCM members in the ward would vote for Chadema just because they want to oust the current ward councillor. Everyone is hoping once the other one gets elected, things would at least change. I was very surprised, because last year, when they had their village council elections, it was definitely CCM that had the upper hand. Maybe change is coming. Last week, when I saw the CCM ward councillor again at her shop, she looked really worried. And my translator told me that the other elderly people standing in front of her shop when we arrived were talking about politics, most likely strategies to help her win.

I see many cars with EU Delegation Elections Committee, or something like that, around these days. I guess these are the observers from the EU. It’s my first time seeing anything like this so it’s interesting.

In normal conversation though, people speak very openly about politics, even if they don’t support CCM. The newspapers don’t really criticize the CCM outright, but you can see negative news about them. I’m not sure if it’s going to be a completely “free and fair” election, but it’s not completely set-up either.