Samia’s charm offensive made its mark

The highlight of President Samia’s one year in office marked on Saturday, March 19, 2022 was both a high and low point centred on the release on a nolle prosequi a week earlier of opposition leader Freeman Aikaeli Mbowe following his arrest last year, and subsequent arraignment on terrorism charges.

Having dispensed with that, let us all agree that it is impossible to assess President Hassan’s first year in office without comparing her leadership with that of her predecessor, the late John Pombe Magufuli.

If you love good neighbourliness and conviviality in relations, join me in congratulating Her Excellency. She embarked on a whirlwind flurry of tours across the region that cemented relations with our neighbours individually, and without needing to hurt the collective wellbeing in the region.

This means that in her pursuit of economic diplomacy, President Hassan did not deem it necessary to burn bridges with, say, Kenya just because we won the kerfuffle against Idi Amin when he invaded Tanzania in 1978.

Her relative lack of diplomatic experience at the highest level did not dampen the spirit with which she got on with it, and she tried, with relative ease and success, to repair cracks which hardliners in CCM had opened with our biggest business partner, Kenya.

One could ask what was in it for this cabal to create an unnecessary siege mentality. It is all ill-advised politics. Compare the gulf in class between Prof Palamagamba Kabudi’s brinkmanship and Ms Liberata Mulamula’s soft power at the Foreign Affairs ministry.

The coming of social media has created a new wave that has toppled governments in places such as Sudan. In Tanzania’s case, social media has given new impetus to citizen awareness.

It is this awareness that has created a wave that has not been very positive for the ruling CCM. Its hegemonic hold on power has been threatened as more and more ordinary people question the existence of poverty, disease and ignorance more than six decades after the country gained independence.

The ruling cabal therefore decided that in order to cover up the myriad of developmental shortcomings and challenges, it was in their best interest to galvanise public angst against enemies – both real and imagined – at home and abroad.

One does not need a political science PhD to know the thinking behind this approach, considering Tanzanians generally resonate with “the world against us” mentality. CCM knows that it wins votes and covers the potholes. The approach worked brilliantly at the beginning of the Fifth Phase presidency.

Fast-forward to the 2020 General Election, and the collective angst against “others” had shifted sharply to anger against the government for its strong-arm tactics against the people in the name of collecting taxes “for development”, and ostensibly stymieing anti-development politics.

President Hassan’s legacy, one year on, however, shall dwell on the diplomatic overdrive that can be summarised as follows:

l Restored Tanzania’s image as a country that dialogues with partners, engages with neighbours, and respects international treaties and agreements not just in word, but also in deed

l Repaired relations damaged by inexplicable utterances by her predecessor, former Foreign Affairs minister, and a slew of party bureaucrats and regional administration demigods

l Took steps to restore investor confidence at a time when it was at an all-time low due to the aforementioned actions

There is no denying that there are people who are unhappy about these developments, and would do anything to take Tanzania back to the days when investors were told that they could not take the government to court.

There are those who admired the eyeballing, gesticulation, and frothing of a former minister. It reminded them of a Tanzania they dreamt of.

President Hassan has come out smelling like a rose with soft power. We should look into the future, not at the past.