No easy road for liberation parties

Dar es Salaam. Major hurdles may frustrate a four-point roadmap that 40 African revolutionary parties -- including Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) -- have agreed to pursue with the Communist Party of China (CPC) in seeking to remain relevant, political pundits say.

At the end of a high-level two-day dialogue in Dar es Salaam last week, the CPC and African parties agreed on four resolutions aimed at realigning themselves with people-centered development.

This was after a rather unsettling revelation that for the past five decades, liberation parties had not been doing enough to serve and improve the lot of their people, as one of their fundamental purposes.

The meeting in Dar es Salaam followed the Beijing CPC in Dialogue with World Political Parties held last year, when more than 300 leaders of political parties and organisations from around the world gathered to deliberate on the building of a community with a shared future for mankind and a better world.

Among the issues the Dar es Salaam meeting agreed is the need for political parties to put more effort into pursuing people-centred development paths in line with the specific national conditions.

Secondly, the parties resolved to play their roles as the leading forces of national development.

Thirdly, they agreed to be shining examples of a new type of party-to-party relations based on mutual learning and benefits. And the fourth resolution is taking new strides to boost the China-Africa cooperation for a shared future.

In his remarks at the meeting, Dr Bashiru Ally, the new CCM secretary general, criticised the revolutionary parties for failing to serve as treasuries of knowledge and foundations of revolutionary thinking.

The former political science lecturer at the University of Dar es Salaam and socio-political commentator noted that for a long time, political parties had been operating like mere “vote-catching machines”, at the expense of the masses.

His comments echoed sentiments by other academicians and seasoned politicians at the meeting, who couldn’t resist the urge to call a spade a spade in expressing their disappointment with the failures of Africa’s liberation movements.

Back home, analysts are of the opinion that the ruling party, a leading force in African liberation movement, needs to do some serious soul-searching if it is to successfully realign with the resolution to adhere to people-centered development, and serve the people as its fundamental purpose, adamant at deepening reform and opening-up in all respects.

Professor Gaudence Mpangala, a lecturer at Ruaha Catholic University (Rucu), says the Achilles heel is the different political and economic path that the political party has chosen to pursue.

While China didn’t abandon its socialist principles, instead choosing to improve them to suit contemporary needs, Tanzania “completely abandoned its socialism and self-reliance ideology and in a manner joined the neo-liberalisation hysteria”, he says.

Neo-liberal policies adopted in the country during the 1980s brought with them competition both in the political and economic spheres. “It abandoned consultative politics of mono-partysm and introduced Tanzania to cutthroat competitive politics.

“For any reforms to be successfully carried out, they should first and foremost be based on the principles of consultation and consensus among political parties and civil organisations; this is currently not the case.

“In our case, [I think] consensus is of paramount importance alongside the creation of a strong national vision which any political party that forms the government can follow,” says Prof Mpangala.

He quickly refers to the Arusha Declaration, describing it as ‘diluted’, and the birth of the Zanzibar Resolution, which he says left the country “moving aimlessly with no definable national vision”.

“Now I don’t suggest that we [should] go [back to] mono-party system,” he explains.

“But we can alternatively use the [existing] multiparty system [by ensuring that it is] built on the foundation of justice, equal chance, tolerance and respect among the political parties in the country.”

Dr Richard Mbunda, a political science lecturer at the University of Dar es Salaam, also agrees that pursuing such reforms as the CPC-Africa meeting agreed on would not be a walk through the park in the absence of sincerity with regards to openness and multupartyism.

He says it will be difficult to bring about people-centred development in the country if the party forming the government fails to appreciate the contribution of the opposition and other independent voices.

“CCM has failed to appreciate the contribution of their opposition counterparts,” he says, adding that under the current administration, the opposition is seen as unpatriotic, and thus has no say in the running of the country’s affairs.

Dr Hamad Salim of the Open University of Tanzania says if CCM, Africa’s oldest liberation party, is sincere about reforms, it will have to go back to the drawing board.

“It must wage a relentless war against petty bourgeoisies who are using the party to further their own interests,” he says. “There is also the need to take back the party to its rightful owners, the people.”

Dr Hamad, however, commended the reforms that President John Magufuli is currently pursuing to reform the party.

He says the failure by African liberation parties is the price they are paying for going against the fundamental visions of their establishment.

“They moved from being the parties of the people to elitist clubs. It is foolhardy to think that pro-people reforms can take place [in the country] under the current situation where the task of carrying them out is vested in personalities rather than institutions.”

Dr Bashiru noted that CCM is implementing reforms to liberate the poor. He argued that the struggle against colonialism was not done yet because the task ahead is fighting exploitation.

Political analysts agree that any bid at reforming Africa’s revolutionary parties will fail unless it addresses the sensational issue of democracy.

Yet across the continent, there is widespread apprehension over the pace at which the march of democracy is being pursued.

While some places like South Africa, and Nigeris (where a corrupt and incompetent ruling party was voted out for the first time since the end of military rule in 1999), are making progress, there are still many discouraging cases.

“Instead of governing well, politicians are keener to steal money so as to bribe and rig their way back to power,” noted the Economist in a 2016 article on African democracy, “The march of democracy slows”.

Most recently, former US President Barack Obama had similar concerns. “Democracy means being in touch and in tune with life as it’s lived in our communities, and that’s what we should expect from our leaders,” he said in his speech to mark Nelson Mandela’s centenary in South Africa last week

“...and it depends upon cultivating leaders at the grassroots who can help bring about change and implement it on the ground and can tell leaders in fancy buildings, this isn’t working down here.