TALKING POINT : Kikwete is right on political tolerance in Africa

Tanzania’s fourth phase President Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete

What you need to know:

  • Speaking particularly on good governance and the rule of law at the African Leadership Forum 2017 in Johannesburg, Mr Kikwete called on Africa’s ruling political parties not to view opposition outfits as enemies but rather as partners in taking Africa to the next frontiers of democracy and development.

In what looks like speaking in turns by former presidents, Tanzania’s fourth phase President Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete spoke last week in defence of democracy.

Speaking particularly on good governance and the rule of law at the African Leadership Forum 2017 in Johannesburg, Mr Kikwete called on Africa’s ruling political parties not to view opposition outfits as enemies but rather as partners in taking Africa to the next frontiers of democracy and development.

A very relaxed Kikwete said it was paramount that the continent’s ruling and opposition parties co-existed amicably. I commend Mr Kikwete for his forthrightness.

Following his comments, there ensured an overwhelming response from politicians and analysts, whose diversity deserve a commentary. On the one hand, serious commentators spoke favourably on the President’s remarks. These focused on a record that Mr Kikwete had in attempting political tolerance. I myself have spoken time and again that if a dissent of opinion deserved anyone imprisonment, I would have been put behind bars not less than 80 times. Although I have never belonged to the political opposition, Tanzanians will recall the number of times I openly spoke against some policies and deeds of the fourth phase government. Thanks to Mr Kikwete’s demonstrated tolerance, one would not be arrested and questioned for only holding views devoid of the status quo.

Saddled as he was by some weaknesses, Mr Kikwete may have resorted to blatantly attacking all elements of opposition against him and CCM. Instead, he was on record saying that criticism on government deserved answers from public servants. Behind the scenes, Mr Kikwete’s rule was filled with repeated pardoning of ‘insurgents’ like politicians and analysts. At some point, his tendencies were justifiably equated with leadership vacuum hence his being called the most overly laissez affaire president Tanzania has had. In his own farewell remarks in 2015, Mr Kikwete described his successor as tougher than he was. It sounds to me that the former president knew President John Magufuli as a no-nonsense, tough and less tolerant man, having worked with him as his minister for the whole cycle of his term. It turns out that Dr Magufuli is truly tough, quantitative and far less tolerant than Mr Kikwete was.

On the other hand, there has been a response from Dr Magufuli’s loyalists who attacked Mr Kikwete for the comments he made. In their rejoinders, the underlying arguments were two-fold. First, that Mr Kikwete’s utterances amounted to back-biting on the current administration which in their view would equal to hypocrisy. I was quite perplexed by this group of respondents, which included most of the ‘born again’ CCM stalwarts currently in some positions of power. Ironically, some of these were previously known to me as strong supporters of Mr Kikwete and Mr Bernard Membe in the past ten years as they served as president and foreign minister respectively. The other line of argument by this group was that Mr Kikwete is not any angel in Africa to lecture us on political tolerance. The sad news was that this group failed to level any objective discussion on Mr Kikwete’s urge and jumped on his past mistakes even when they were far from relating to the substance of his point.

Like the ruling party circles, some opposition cadres especially from Zanzibar accused Mr Kikwete of being part of the problems, not solutions. In their arguments, the cited the interference with the Zanzibar election in 2015 as having been orchestrated by Mr Kikwete himself. Unfortunately, that also did not justify why he would have to refrain from speaking in favour of democratic governance and political tolerance now that he was out of power. In my view, former statesmen must be given the chance to appraise Africa’s democratic development when they are retired knowing they may be in a better position to see what they not have seen while they were in the incumbency. This takes me to the point I have repeatedly made in the past few years – that of establishing a National Advisory Council to officially serve as the chief Counsel to the President of Tanzania. This would have to be constitutionally established with its Terms of Reference properly founded on the basic law.

Going forward, Tanzanians need to learn to be more objective and tolerant. Political parties should ideally be institutional vehicles for grooming and transforming citizens into leadership. In absence of independent candidature, all political administration solely depends on parties. The levels of tolerance in the parties ultimately determines public tolerance more broadly. Political parties may be agents of unity of division, democracy or autocracy. Former presidents are free to express their opinion just like Mr Ali Hassan Mwinyi, Mr Benjamin Mkapa and now Mr Kikwete have done in recent weeks. My biggest urge would be for them to exercise such freedom with great caution to avoid dividing the nation with their utterances.

Deus Kibamba is trained in Political Science, International Politics and International Law