Peace more important than who wins

OCTOBER 2010, DAR ES SALAAM

If what Tanzanians witnessed during election campaigns in the run up to the General Elections scheduled for this Sunday is anything to go by, then every soul on this land ought to start preparing for a balancing act of sort for future elections!

One thing is certain, this year’s election campaigns were arguably the most hard fought since the introduction of multiparty politics in the country in July 1992.

After this year’s election campaigns, general elections in Tanzania will never be the same again, hence the need in the 2015 general elections to work out strategies to avoid any unpleasant political developments.

And that can be realized through massive civic and voters’ education that will arm Tanzanians with the requisite knowledge in the two areas.

A dose in civic and voters’ education will, hopefully, also help in inculcating a sense of civility in the kind of language that candidates seeking elective posts ought to use during their election campaigns.

It is indisputable that some of the language employed by candidates for elective posts from some opposition parties in the country left a lot to be desired.

A case in point happened on Tuesday, October 26^th when the Chadema candidate for Temeke parliamentary seat abusive language against President Jakaya Kikwete.

In terms of media coverage, election campaigns this year afforded Tanzanians the opportunity of witnessing in their own midst one of the worst checkbook journalism.

Thanks God that most of the media outlets that peddled checkbook journalism are nondescript in terms of readership.

Had some of the mainstream papers in the country conducted themselves in the manner those swahili weeklies had, Tanzania could have easily slipped into the 1994 Rwanda scenario!

What was interesting about those nondescript Swahili weeklies is that most of them appeared to be owned by one person, going by the kind of advertisements they carried.

Of course, there is nothing wrong about businessmen and women owning media outlets.

Unfortunately for these weeklies, they had nothing to do with journalism apart from peddling outright hate.

How such weeklies could be left scot-free despite feeding the nation with untold venom week in, week out that is left to conjecture!

Could the continued existence of these Swahili weeklies be due to the fact that they (papers) directed their venom to individuals in the opposition parties?

On election proper, it is very unlikely that the massive number of people who turned out during political parties’ campaigns would be reflected in the voting pattern.

One of the main reasons for this is very simple. More often than not most of the people who turn out in such political rallies have not registered themselves in the voters’ register!

These therefore constitutes the first major lesson, if one is to talk of any lessons from the just ended election campaigns, for political parties, especially, from the opposition.

Indeed, at no time was the importance of grass-root structures for political parties (that include, among others, recruitment of members and education on parties’ policies and election manifestoes) been laid bare than during the just ended election campaigns.

Some political parties’ rallies could be compared to a handful group of friends usually found at a pub, hence literally reducing such meetings into nothing more than a laughing stock.

As for opposition parties like Chadema and CUF, they must be cursing themselves over their failure, after the end of the last elections in 2005, to embark on massive building of their structures, especially in the rural areas.

It was perhaps for this reason that Chadema’s Presidential candidate, Dr Willibrod Slaa said at one time, during election campaigns, that he was not bothered by being out of Parliament on account of his involvement in the presidential race.

That if he lost the presidential election, he would spent the rest of the five years building the party, from grass-root level, throughout the country in readiness for the 2015 General Elections.

This year’s campaigns, save for one sad incident in which an innocent citizen was killed in Maswa West Constituency, was very exciting although at times it threatened to get out of hand.

But when all is said and done, one thing is indisputable. No political party can stand up and say its acts, as political campaigns lasted, were clean, through and through!

Indeed, every political party in the race had its dirty side. Perhaps the only difference lay in the degree.

However, it is not the intention of this article to name names, but rather to look into, albeit in brief, the remaining exercises-vote casting, vote counting and announcement of results.

According to election experts, for any political party under the sun to do well in general elections or any elections for that matter, there are many factors which ought to be fulfilled by the party.

The factors include, among others, nomination of candidates, within a political party, for various elective posts, registration of voters, party’s policy and election manifesto, election campaigns, casting of votes and finally, vote counting and announcement of results-winners and losers.

For instance, during the just ended election campaigns, Tanzanians bore witness to how nomination in the primaries within one political party-in this particular case, CCM, continued to raise a lot of dust.

The point is, mishandling of any of the processes, in the electoral process, starting from within the political party to the top could, in the end, have a bearing on the party’s election results.

The Secretary General of the Inter Religious Council for Peace in Tanzania, IRCPT, Alhaj Ayoob Omar early this month said it was important for political leaders to realize that winning in elections involved many factors.

Alhaj Omar who was addressing the opening of the IRCPT three-day meeting at Landmark Hotel in Dar es Salaam said the road to a party’s success in general election started from its own organization.

He named other factors as the nomination process of its candidates, registration of voters, casting of votes and announcement of results, winners and losers.

For instance, he bemoaned about a political party which had fielded only 75 percent of candidates for the parliamentary race in the country.

“The implication of this is that the party in question has lost 25 percent of parliamentary seats even before the general elections on Sunday.” He said.

He said losing 25 percent of parliamentary seats even before the start of the voting exercise was not a small thing, that this development was bound to have its effects on the final results.

While some of the leading opposition parties fielded lesser number of candidates for parliamentary seats, as evidenced by the no-show off, the story in the ruling party is different.

CCM has fielded one hundred percent number of candidates for parliamentary seats.

But this does not mean that the ruling party will sweep all parliamentary seats, far from it.

The point is, the law of average is more likely to favour the party which has fielded candidates for all parliamentary seats.

For instance, it would be recalled that most opposition parties allowed the ruling party space in numerous parliamentary constituencies.

Of course, there have been claims about some opposition candidates being allegedly bought by their counterparts from the ruling party.

However, whatever is said about such claims the point still remains, and that is, this is the opposition parties’ problem.

In fact, this is part of what was touched on earlier, namely about the importance of every political party being well organized well before the general election.

If a political party is well run and organized, it will not have in its midst candidates who can be easily bought by opponents in order to sail unopposed!

Party and individual members’ discipline is another factor which is very important for a party whose candidates are seeking elective posts.

Once picked, through the nomination process, to run say for a parliamentary seat, then it is incumbent upon such candidate to steer away from misconduct which could lead to his or her disqualification from the race.

A parliamentary candidate for any party is more or less like a member of a football team that is contesting for top honours in the form of a trophy.

If a footballer behaves on the pitch in such a way that he ends up being red-carded, it goes without saying that such a player ends up reducing his colleagues’ ability to win!

Tanzanians, just like many other fans the world over, were able to see, during the World Cup in South Africa mid this year, how red-carded players literally dented their national teams’ chances of doing well in the tournament.

The same thing could be said about candidates for elective political posts.

Their misconduct in the form of say, using abusive language during election campaigns and other misconduct, could easily lead to their disqualification from the election race, hence denting their party’s chance in the election.

One of the motives behind enumeration of the foregoing factors/problems is to show that a political party’s victory over other parties depends on a many factors.

It is therefore the hope of many Tanzanians (who have the interest of the country at heart) that before complaining about election results, political parties consider their general conduct well before the elections.

But this does not mean that political parties should not complain if they discover that their victories have been stolen, far from it.

The point is, it is important to complain in a manner that would not end up inciting people against one another in the same way it had happened in Kenya.

The Kenyan experience is well known to all and sundry. Disagreement over the results led to the killing of over 1000 people in post-election violence!

Again, saying what happened in Kenya in relation to general election should not be viewed as an attempt to ‘frighten’ the people.

The point here is simply analogous. And one cannot run away from such glaring facts, especially given the fact that Tanzania is not an oasis.

We all wish a peaceful general elections since peace is more important than who wins in the elections.

By Attilio Tagalile