TOUGH JUSTICE : Embrace CCM’s ‘rebirth’ with cautious optimism

What you need to know:

 

  • As a party that has held power for 40 years, one would expect CCM to be disintegrating due to the weight of its own decadence as it has happened elsewhere in Africa. CCM is instead seeing greater consolidation.
  • The kind of foothold that CCM enjoys in the country is a rarity in Africa. Even without considering the TANU years, it remains the longest serving reigning party on the continent, with its grip so firm on our politics such that “when it sneezes, Tanzania catches a cold”. A reformed CCM is therefore bound to have greater implications that must be understood from a non-partisan perspective.

Eents that happened at the newly branded Kikwete Hall in Dodoma, particularly changes made by the ruling CCM’s congress earlier this month, bear all the hallmarks of a rebirth of a party.

As a party that has held power for 40 years, one would expect CCM to be disintegrating due to the weight of its own decadence as it has happened elsewhere in Africa. CCM is instead seeing greater consolidation.

The kind of foothold that CCM enjoys in the country is a rarity in Africa. Even without considering the TANU years, it remains the longest serving reigning party on the continent, with its grip so firm on our politics such that “when it sneezes, Tanzania catches a cold”. A reformed CCM is therefore bound to have greater implications that must be understood from a non-partisan perspective.

 A top-down approach

The party seems to be consolidating around the top leadership. The unanimous vote of approval for top-down constitutional reforms could be interpreted as a tell-tale sign that CCM has either achieved that rare, almost-utopian state of party unity. Otherwise one might say that they’ve raised the stakes for dissent in the party to a level where members perceive a greater reward in being “yes-men”. We can only hope that the former is true.

CCM has had to endure a lot of opposition from within, and this becomes evident every five years, during election primaries. The party’s nomination processes from ward to country level have always left many casualties—presidential primaries in 2015 being the most potent threat. It is only right for a party in such a position to seek to unify.

Chadema too once consolidated around their current Chairman even when it necessitated a change in their constitution. Again, even in their example, we can only hope that the sacking of some prominent members during the process was not a sign of little tolerance towards opposition.

Stronger parties, provided they do not unify by suppressing opposition, are in a better position to deliver on their agendas.

 A development agenda

It was reassuring to see development back at the top of the agenda in congress. The chairman’s speech sounded like an address to the nation regarding his vision for national prosperity, as opposed to one purely targeting CCM stalwarts on typical party matters.

Election manifestos released by parties in the past have hardly been convincing. For the most part, they’ve been seen as overly ambitious, more symbolic documents. However, it seems CCM is moving towards greater harmony between the State’s and their own agenda, and this may help materialise President Magufuli’s election manifesto.

However, it is important to be cautious that, if entertained to a greater degree, this consolidation of state and party could obscure the importance of other organs of state. I do therefore hope that the party will “stay in their lane” and keep a safe distance from matters of state that require non-partisanship.

 Other reforms

The president also communicated the party’s resolve towards self-sustenance, claiming that the “rich” party was being “bullied” by its financial donors. While this in itself was a cringe-worthy admission about CCM’s past, the new move is likely to (at least in part) rectify the party’s unfair advantage in raising funds.

After getting rid of “special interests”, the remaining bit will involve ensuring the “wealth of assets” that the party held on to even after the introduction of multiparty politics is revisited for purposes of creating a more level playing field in the nation’s politics. This, however, is an agenda that civil society and opposition parties should be more concerned with.

In a past edition of this column, I argued that it is difficult to “tell the parties apart by anything more significantly different than their flag colours.” Hence I welcome, with open arms, CCM’s move to start a training institute as announced by party spokesperson Humphrey Polepole.

A party that seeks to distinguish itself on the basis of ideology is one that is headed in the right direction. I must however caution that whatever curriculum the party develops must be vetted to ensure it does not produce political hooligans, fanatics or radicals, but seasoned politicians who will advance the nation’s democratic praxes.

Periodic reforms are a necessary step in the evolutionary circle of any “healthy” party. CCM’s has raised the bar, but it’s only logical for whichever party that comes next to view it as the lowest benchmark.

For the sake of our democracy, I eagerly wait to see very strong and strategic reactions from other parties.