Tanzania’s Palpable Democracy Fiction, the Proverbial Mask Slips
29 March, 2024 — Like with every work of fiction, there comes a time when the story will end. This is where Tanzania’s ruling CCM party, a toxic criminal cartel responsible for countless abductions and murders over the years, seems to be headed after peddling democratic fiction for over 30 years, just to satisfy the international community’s criterion on democratic rule as a prerequisite to aid.
Whilst in the background, CCM has rigged every single election since the introduction of a multi-party system in 1995. In recent years, after the rise of John Magufuli’s authoritarian rule, the regime cranked up the ante and slid Tanzania into an abyss of cold-blooded murder and election fraud like never before witnessed.
His successor, Samia Suluhu Hassan, wearing a hijab, a smile, and heavily reliant on photo ops while dishing out false promises by the truckloads, looks set to continue the Magufuli legacy of election rigging, abductions (currently ongoing), trumped-up charges against the opposition, and God forbid, murder during election time.
But the Tanzanian people are rising to the occasion, fueled by economic hardship and recent mass demonstrations in four cities, and with more nationwide demonstrations planned to take off on April 22, 2024.
Come to the next elections slated for October 2024/25, it looks unlikely the ruling CCM party will have an easy ride this time round because the people have woken up and will likely resist. The tide has turned, and we can look forward to exciting times.
The 4Rs (Reconciliation, Resilience, Reform, and Rebuild) championed by President Samia Suluhu Hassan to distance herself from her predecessor and to whitewash her image, appear to have hit a flat note, exposing the regime’s lack of integrity and leadership.
Ironically and completely off the cuff, her chief CCM party propagandist Paul Makonda outed her publicly in a recent statement that reiterated Samia Suluhu Hassan and John Pombe Magufuli being one and the same, and that anyone trying to distance her from Magufuli is being delusional.
In Conclusion, from the people’s perspective, it’s all hands on deck from here on out, with all the tell-tell signs suggesting the regime, oftentimes referred to as a cartel, is quaking in its boots.
That being said, I implore the international community to keep an eye on the upcoming Tanzania elections. The dress rehearsal is ongoing, with unfolding incidents exposing the true colors of the CCM government leading up to crunch time, in October 2024/25.
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