Tanzania: "The Song Remains The Same"

The Song Remains The Same: In Tanzanian Elections, Voting Is Just a ‘Mere’ Formality Tanzania This summer, the Tanzanian government banned foreigners from owning and operating certain small-scale businesses in a move aimed at protecting and preserving job opportunities for locals. Under the new rules, foreigners are prohibited from participating in 15 specific business sectors, including small retail shops, eateries, salons, tourism businesses, mobile money kiosks, mobile phone services, small-scale mining, and radio and TV operations, among others. Trade Minister Selemani Jafo said foreigners had increasingly become involved in the informal sector and that these jobs are important for Tanzanians. The move, meanwhile, has generally been welcomed among Tanzanians amid growing concerns that foreigners, including Chinese nationals, have been encroaching on the smaller trades, the BBC wrote. The British news outlet noted that last year, traders at Dar es Salaam’s bustling Kariakoo shopping district went on strike to protest against unfair competition from Chinese traders. “We’ve welcomed this decision because it protects the livelihoods of Tanzanian traders,” Severine Mushi, the head of Kariakoo traders’ association, told Tanzania’s Citizen newspaper. The move by the government came in the run-up to national elections. But analysts say that attempts to please voters don’t mean much: When Tanzanians go to the polls on Oct. 29, they won’t have much choice anyway. “But this erosion of democracy will also come at the cost of (the country’s) economic potential,” wrote British think tank, Chatham House. The incumbent, President Samia Suluhu Hassan of the Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) party, which has held power since 1977, took office after the death of her predecessor, John Magufuli, in 2021, and will face election for the first time. But her most serious challenger, opposition leader Tundu Lissu, has been imprisoned since April on treason charges due to his demands for electoral reform. His CHADEMA party has been banned from the election. Another prominent contender and ruling party defector, Luhaga Mpina, is also banned from running. That’s normal in the East African country, say analysts. Tanzania has had six elections since multiparty democracy was introduced in 1995, and the CCM has won them all, making it one of Africa’s longest-ruling independent parties, wrote the Institute for Security Studies. Much of this electoral dominance has resulted from exclusion, censorship, electoral fraud, and violence against the opposition, it added: “The current electoral situation shows that Tanzania is sliding further into a de facto authoritarian system where voting is reduced to a procedural coronation ritual for the ruling party.” Still, the country continues to slide: Since 2016, Freedom House has categorized Tanzania as “Partly Free” but almost a decade later, it has dropped to the “Not Free” category, signaling an increasingly authoritarian turn by Hassan, analysts say. When Hassan took office in 2021, there was hope that she would be a different kind of Tanzanian leader, one that would allow civil liberties, halt government repression, and promote the development the country so desperately needs. In the first year, she got off to a good start, say observers, promoting the “Four Rs” of reconciliation, resilience, reforms, and rebuilding, becoming a marked contrast to her predecessor, an authoritarian leader. The president released political prisoners, removed restrictions on media outlets, began working with the opposition, lifted a ban on opposition party rallies, and started a program of electoral reform. But that was then, before a crackdown on the opposition began last year, one that has been intensifying this year, and has included the abduction of and attacks on civil society activists, journalists, and religious leaders, as well as opposition politicians. “The façade of progressive change that had been constructed under (Hassan) is crumbling and could presage a return to authoritarian rule in Tanzania,” wrote World Politics Review. Now, according to the Council on Foreign Relations, October’s election promises to be a repeat of local elections in November, where many CHADEMA candidates were disqualified, and the CCM ended up winning 99 percent of the local races. That means the elections will be a missed opportunity for the country, especially economically, analysts say. Tanzania, a leading gold exporter worldwide, with abundant natural resources, and a growing economy, continues to grapple with deep poverty: Almost half of its 62 million people live on less than $3 a day, according to the World Bank. For many voters, small-scale farmers, informal traders, street vendors, and unemployed youth, the cost of living has become untenable, say observers. New rules banning foreigners from working in certain sectors won’t change that, just create tensions with other countries in the region that may retaliate against Tanzanians working in their countries and impose trade penalties. “People are tired,” one Tanzanian voter, Muhemsi, told Peoples Dispatch. “Access to dignified work, education, or health has become a privilege. Most ordinary people live in daily struggle while a few elites grow richer.” “ “The crisis isn’t just electoral, it’s systematic,” he added. “But people know what isn’t working. And they’re looking for alternatives.”