As the
sudden news of Hon Edward Lowassa’s defection from CHADEMA on Friday evening, 1st
March, 2019 reverberated around the
country, and beyond; a journalist from
one of the Daily Newspapers called to ask for my views regarding that matter,
and in particular, the extent of that event’s impact on CCM. My considered
reply was that Lowassa’s reverse defection to CCM will have very minimal impact,
if any, on Chama cha Mapinduzi (CCM); simply because his
coming back to CCM has brought no greater benefit than one single additional
member into our great party. Thus, considering the fact that CCM already has
more than seven million registered members; the arrival of one additional
member, even if that member is a heavy weight politician like Hon. Edward
Lowassa, former Prime Minister of the United Republic of Tanzania; the effect
is still the same, namely that it only a ‘drop in the ocean’! Although the writing of this article
has been motivated by this Lowassa event, but its principal purpose is to make
some general reflections on the seemingly on-going defections by Opposition
politicians, including MPs, to the ruling party CCM.
The meaning, and the effect,
of the MPs defections.
Opposition
MPs defections to the ruling party can, indeed, cause some harmful effects on
the Opposition camp in Parliament. In August last year, I was invited to
participate as guest speaker, in a seminar organized for the members of the
Zanzibar House of Representatives. In the course of the Question and Answer session,
I was asked a direct question regarding whether such defections by Opposition
MPs “are not a strategy by the ruling party to “kill” the Opposition” in
Parliament. In my reply, I explained that defections by MPs from one political
party to another, is an accepted, normal practice, in all of the Commonwealth
Parliamentary jurisdictions. This is due to the legal provisions in our State
Constitutions, which provide that “joining a political party, or continuing to remain a member of such
party, are entirely voluntary choices of the individual persons concerned; and
no one can be lawfully prevented from making such a choice.
However, regarding the specific matter of the
‘Official Opposition’ in Parliament; if the trend of defections to the ruling
party continues, it could, indeed, lead to the elimination of what is
designated as the Official Opposition inside
Parliament. This is because of the House Rules, which actually require a minimum number of MPs which an
opposition party must have, in order to qualify for the right to form the ‘Official
Opposition’ in Parliament. This minimum number is specified therein, as being
“not less than twelve and a half percent of the total number of MPs”. In the
present Parliament, CHADEMA is currently the Opposition party which satisfies
the requirements of that Rule. Thus, in the most unlikely event of CHADEMA MPs
falling below the specified percentage, that party will have lost the status of
being the ‘Official Opposition’ party in Parliament.
But still, the remaining CHADEMA MPs,
and any other Opposition MPs, will continue operating as Opposition backbench
MPs; which means that the Opposition within Parliament will NOT have been
“killed”.
Defections by
politicians and their reasons.
Whenever politicians decide to defect from one political
party to another, they normally give reasons for their said action; but they
always carefully avoid mentioning their true motives for doing so. It is my humble submission
here, that the true (but hidden) motives which propel politicians into
undertaking defections to other parties, are based solely on two factors. They
are (i) the PUSH factor, and (ii) the PULL factor. And these in turn, are governed by two other
factors, which are: (i) political
AMBITION; and (ii) political FRUSTRATION.
The word ‘ambition’ is defined as “a
strong desire to achieve something”. In relation to political ambition, it is a
strong (sometimes insatiable) desire to acquire political power. While the word
“frustration’ is defined as “the state of feeling annoyed and impatient because
you cannot do or achieve what you want”. Both of these are primarily a PUSH
factors. But they can at the same time
become PULL factors. For example, on
several occasions in the past, the ambition to get elected to Parliament is
what has “pushed’” a number of politicians out of CCM. These are those who had
initially applied for a CCM ticket to contest the relevant general elections,
but had failed to get the desired nomination. They thus suffered FRUSTRATION,
and were accordingly ‘pulled’ to CHADEMA, in search of a means to satisfy their
AMBITION, which is the quest for a seat in Parliament. ‘Ambition’
and ‘Frustration’ normally go hand in hand.
In fact, defections by Tanzanian politicians have a very
long history, which shows that during distinctly different periods, prominent politicians have
been driven by ‘ambition’, or ‘frustration’, or both; to defect from the ruling
party. The following examples will serve
to illustrate this point. The ‘push’ factors.
(i) As long ago as
1958, a prominent politician, one Zuberi
Mtemvu, angrily walked out of TANU, and formed his own party which he named the
‘African National Congress’, of which he became the top leader. He had the extremist ambition of making
Tanganyika a purely African State. Thus,
when TANU’s 1958 Annual Conference agreed to participate in elections on the
basis of the colonial “tripartite” vote system, which made it compulsory for
electors to vote for three candidates, i.e. an African, an Asian and a European;
the said Zuberi Mtemvu was utterly
frustrated, and this led to abandon TANU,
But his ultimate ambition was to replace Nyerere and become the leader
of the country himself. (ii) Many years later, another politician, Oscar Kambona, who was TANU’s
Secretary-General, and a senior Minister in President Nyerere’s Government;
also defected from TANU. His was also a case of being ‘pushed’ out by
frustration. He is presumed to have
harboured a secret ambition to replace President Nyerere as leader of the
country; but the adoption of the Arusha Declaration in February 1967, had effectively
derailed his ambition; for the Arusha Declaration had vastly increased Nyerere’
popularity, both within and outside the country, which made him realized that
his secret ambition could not be realized any time soon. This is what ‘pushed’ him out of TANU. He
suddenly resigned from all his leadership positions, and strangely decided to
run away from the country, and went to live in exile in London; from where he
continued to wage his unsuccessful battles against President Nyerere.
The ‘pull’ factors.
Many more
years later in 1995, another prominent politician, Augustine Lyatonga Mrema,
also a senior Minister in President Ali Hassan Mwinyi’s Government, similarly defected
to the Opposition party, the NCCR-MAGEUZI. He was obviously ‘pulled’ there by
what he saw as a ‘guaranteed opportunity’ for him to achieve his ambition of
becoming President of the United Republic. In his case, there was really no ‘push’ factor
which is generated by ‘frustration’, since he had not tried and failed to
secure nomination from CCM for Presidential candidacy. He however appears to have realized, from the
list of qualifications laid down by CCM, that he was unqualified for CCM
nomination. That realization is what ‘pushed’ him out of CCM, and ‘pulled’ him
to his chosen Opposition party; where he immediately secured the top leadership
position of National Chairman. And that is what guaranteed him nomination as a
candidate for the 1995 Presidential elections.
Hon. Edward Lowassa’s
reverse defection.
For the
seasoned political insiders, including myself, Hon. Lowassa’s action of
defecting back to CCM, was largely expected. His initial defection to CHADEMA
was a very clear case of being ‘pushed’ out of CCM by heavy ‘frustration’, which
was the result of a cruel shock, that had suddenly and unexpectedly been imposed
on him, as a result of the ‘unbelievable’
refusal by CCM to nominate him as candidate for the 2015 Presidential
election. This shocked him, plus many others even within CCM; because he had
invested so heavily in that election project, that he naturally expected the
returns on his investment to be hugely profitable. Additionally, he had also been successful in
recruiting a large number of supporters; another favorable factor which had assured
him of success. For
transparency purposes, it may be necessary to disclose the reasons for CCM’s
refusal to nominate him. CCM denied
Lowassa that nomination, simply because of his breach of the ‘sacrosanct’
leadership code of ethics principles.
For there was sufficient, and credible, incriminating evidence relating
to that serious charge. Ironically, his most vocal external accusers were
CHADEMA who, in September 2017, had publicly displayed him as being among a
short list of ethical offenders, whom they castigated as being “mafisadi papa”.
In such circumstances, Edward Lowassa
was seemingly unelectable, and thus CCM refused to take the high risk of
nominating him, for the obvious fear of losing that election.
Those then,
were the precise events which created the shocking frustration that drove
Edward Lowassa out of CCM; but was surprisingly warmly received and welcomed
by CHADEMA, his erstwhile ‘enemies’. This was a wholly ‘unprincipled’
move which led to the angry resignation of their ‘principled’ Secretary-General,
Dr. Wilbrod Slaa, plus a variety of other disadvantages. Initially, of course, Lowassa got
complete satisfaction when CHADEMA agreed to nominate him as their Presidential
election candidate. His ‘insatiable’ ambition
to run for the Presidency had thus been fulfilled. And, because of his huge investment
in that project, he was pretty confident that he would easily land in State
House, as President of the United Republic of Tanzania.
Edward Lowassa was unable to win that election. And this was yet another
cruel ‘frustration’ for him, which must have persuaded him to start thinking of
‘coming back home” to CCM; his chosen original party, as evidenced by his own
words which he joyfully expressed on that Friday evening, namely that he had
“come back home”; a home which he had temporarily left in order to go out in
search of an opportunity to fulfill his political AMBITION. It may even be called “Domestic political
tourism”.
Thus, this was a move which the ‘insiders’
were pretty confident Lowassa would eventually take at some appropriate moment
in the course of time. And that appropriate moment turned out to be last
Friday, 1st March, 2019.
Some grass roots CHADEMA
members’ reactions.
In this
particular connection, the residents of Nansio Township Authority in my own home
District of Ukerewe have, in recent times, witnessed two consecutive defections
from CHADEMA to the ruling party CCM.
The first to defect was the MP for Ukerewe; and then came the Lowassa
defection. On each of these occasions, the Nansio public got some free ‘entertainment’
from a CHADEMA group, which decided to offer a unique display of a flag-lowering
comedy. When the Ukerewe MP defected to
CCM last year, this group ceremoniously lowered their CHADEMA flag to half- mast,
presumably as a sign of mourning. But when Edward Lowassa defected back to CCM
last Friday, they lowered their flag right down to the ground, probably
intended to symbolize the total departure of that party from their area!
piomsekwa@gmail.com / 0754767576.
Source: Daily News today and for the Courtesy of Cde Msekwa himself.
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