There was a historic ‘change of guard’ in CCM, when President Samia Suluhu Hassan was elected CCM national Chairperson on 30th April, 2021. At the time of her election, CCM had just attained the age of forty four years. A political party of forty four years is, obviously, pretty oldish. And there is a ‘wicked’ inclination in some people, to suppose that old political parties “have outlived their usefulness”!
Today’s article will endeavour to dispute that notion, by just narrating how CCM has managed to survive for all these years, despite going through some difficult political challenges which, under some other multi-party political jurisdictions, could have easily thrown the ruling political party out of power.
Down memory lane.
The gurus have been said, that “history is the memory recorded in our brain”. I personally had the great good fortune of being a key player in the hectic preparations for CCM’s establishment, when I was appointed member/secretary of the joint TANU/ASP 20-man Commission which had been set up to make preparations for its establishment, and subsequently being the master of ceremony at its birth day celebrations at Amani Stadium in Zanzibar on 5th February, 1977; plus, soon thereafter, being appointed the first Executive Secretary General of the newly born party. I therefore have some rich, pleasant memories ‘recorded in my brain’, which could help in facilitating informed discussions regarding this topic. For that reason, this article will now take our readers ‘down memory lane’, by recalling the major historic events which led to CCM’s establishment; and its subsequent chequered ‘stages of growth’ thereafter.
It was Mwalimu Nyerere’s bold initiative.
The starting point was President Nyerere’s acceptance speech on 22nd September, 1975, upon his re-nomination by the joint TANU/ASP electoral conference, as TANU’s candidate for that year’s Presidential election. In the course of that speech, President Nyerere made the following ground breaking proposal:- “Our country is, legally and constitutionally, a One-party State. But, in reality, we have two parties. I believe that this is a constitutional anomaly, which is a very serious matter. It is my sincere conviction, that we should now give serious consideration to this matter, and find way of removing this anomaly. I am convinced that we will greatly strengthen the unity of our people, and also give ourselves greater capacity for carrying our revolution forward, if we now agree to merge our two parties, in order to form one strong revolutionary party, which will lead our revolutionary nation”. (I should perhaps draw special attention to the significance of the words “in order to form one revolutionary party” in the last sentence; because that is precisely why the new party was named “Chama cha Mapinduzi”).
Nyerere’s proposal was received with enthusiastic acclamation by the entire conference, no one dissenting. Hence, the practical implementation of that proposal subsequently commenced when, on 2nd October, 1976, a 20-person joint Commission, comprising an equal number of members from both parties was appointed, and given the task of “making all the preparations necessary preparations for the formation of the new party, resulting from the voluntary merger of the two parties”. And, as already stated above, I was appointed Member/Secretary of that Commission.
CCM’s measured stages of growth thereafter.
The new party was born under the monopolistic ‘One-party State’ political dispensation. Its Mission and Vision, were clearly stated in the Preamble to its Constitution, as follows:- “Tumeamua kwa pamoja, kuunda chama kipya cha kuendeleza mapinduzi ya kijamaa nchini Tanzania, pamoja na mapambano ya ukombozi wa Afrika, juu ya misingi imara iliyojengwa na TANU na ASP. Chama kipya tunachokiunda, tunataka kiwe ni chombo madhubuti katika muundo wake na katika fikra zake; na pia katika vitendo vyake vya kufutilia mbali aina zote za dhuluma na unyonyaji hapa nchini; na kupambana na jambo lolote lile, ama la mtu kuonea mtu mwingine, au chombo cha Serikali kuonea au kudhalilisha wananchi; au kudhoofisha uchumi wa nchi na kuzorotesha maendeleo ya Taifa letu”.
My humble submission is that CCM’s continued strength over the past 44 years, lies principally in its successful implementation of its Mission and vision, and its policies and programmes which are articulated in its election manifestos every five years; which has been the main source of its continued appeal to the majority of the Tanzanian electorate, giving CCM huge successes in all the multi party general elections that have been held over all these years.
CCM’s organizational structure.
CCM’s other source of strength, lies in its organizational structure, and the party’s healthy practice of regular and continuous recruitment of new party members mostly from among the younger generations; as well as new party leaders at all levels of the party hierarchy, through the process of party elections which are held regularly after every five years (or every ten years in the case of the national party Chairman); plus its successful implementation of its election manifesto promises. In my view, these are the factors which have been great and significant assets that have contributed hugely to the party’s strength, and sustainability.
The transition to multi-party politics.
The party’s transition to multi-party politics was its second stage of growth, when it was effected in 1992, when the country’s Constitution was extensively amended in order to include new provision which would accommodate the new multiparty political dispensation. This transition was actually initiated, and actively processed, by CCM itself; having fully realized that the political landscape in many countries on the world was rapidly changing in that direction. The entry into multi-party politics necessitated CCM’s participation in the multi-party. electoral competitions.
The challenges of multi-party politics.
After the transition to multi-party politics , CCM has, inevitably, been facing a variety of challenges, including the possibility that CCM’s longevity alone could lead to its downfall from power, allegedly because “people will eventually get tired of it”! In my humble opinion, this is not a valid proposition, simply because: unlike human beings, who die basically due to biological causes that lead to the human heart ceasing to function; Organizations, such as political parties, can only die due to avoidable human errors such as scandals, and other which are committed by the erring parties themselves. “self-inflicted injuries”.
Examples of CCM’s self-inflicted injuries.
The dictionary definition of the word ‘self-inflicted injury” is that it is “an injury which one inflicts deliberately upon himself”. The word “deliberately” is a key word in this definition. It means that the resultant injury must have been deliberately inflicted upon the injured, through his own deliberate negligence. Thus, as a veteran ‘mzee wa Chama’ myself who has all along been in its ‘corridors of power’, I can venture to testify positively to the contention that CCM has, sometimes, been a victim of its own ‘self-inflicted injuries’. The following examples may serve to illustrate this point:
(i) Its dismal electoral performance in the 2010 Presidential election.
The results of the 2010 presidential election, manifestly showed that CCM’s support among the voting population, had sharply declined and gone down to unprecedented low levels. These results had provided a loud and clear “wake-up call” to the party, which, commendably, lost no time in responding to this call, by embarking on a serious internal evaluation exercise, in order to determine the true causes of this sudden decline in its popularity among the electorate.
This exercise revealed, that the major sources for this loss of support were the following:
(a) The damaging scandals which were closely associated with the party’s leaders. These included the “Richmond scandal”, which effectively rocked the National Assembly, with the CCM MPs being divided into two antagonistic groups, with one group being labeled as the ‘mafisadi’ group; and the other identifying itself as the ‘anti-mafisadi’ group. As if that was not enough, the Richmond scandal was rapidly followed by another, equally damaging scandal, known as the “EPA scandal”; which consisted of serious accusations being directed at certain prominent CCM national leaders, who were alleged to have illegally ‘stolen’ huge sums of money from the External Payments Account (EPA) of the Central Bank (BOT). Such accusations naturally raised anger among the community, and thus contributed to the loss of public trust in the ruling party.
(b) The ideological challenges: the failure to implement Ujamaa.
The dismal failure to implement the Party’s Ujamaa ideology, was certainly one of the major challenges to the strength and reputation of Chama cha Mapinduzi, which was caused primarily by factors such as;-
(i) Attempting to build socialism without socialists.
It is stated in the Arusha Declaration document itself, that “Socialism cannot just establish itself. It can only be established, and maintained, by people who have complete faith in the efficacy of this system”. In our case, it can be asserted that the party was attempting to build socialism where there were no committed socialist, a state of affairs which was aggravated by the presence of other negative, ‘self-injury’ factors, including :-
(i) The mismanagement of ‘Operation Vijiji’.
The mismanagement of the “Operation Vijiji” exercise in 1973/74 created massive, negative anti-Ujamaa attitudes among the people, particularly among the majority rural population. The that these mismanagement actions were committed by the inept, reckless administration officials of the party and its government, who literally used ‘brutal force’ by forcing people to relocate to what were designated as “Ujamaa villages”, during the relevant ‘operation’ in 1973/74; whereby large numbers of village people were literally ‘rounded’ up at their established homes, and herded off, together with their belongings, to distant bare sites, which were supposed to be their new residential areas; and were just abandoned and left to fend for themselves, their previous homes having been destroyed as a strategy to prevent them from returning there.
Such brutality, necessarily created massive ill feelings, plus utter frustration, and collective anger, among the affected people; who therefore decided that ‘if this was the Ujamaa they were being told about, they would have none of it! (ii) The failure of the Ujamaa industrial sector to deliver.
The other factor which contributed to the loss of faith in the efficacy of the Ujamaa ideology; was the miserable failure of the much touted Ujamaa industrial sector; which, unfortunately, failed to produce enough goods and services to satisfy the needs of the people. This resulted in extreme shortages of all the essential items required for people’s daily consumption, to the extent that in the early 1980s, people had to join long, endless waiting lines, in order to be able to purchase any item whatsoever, from the few designated shops which were allowed to keep and sell these essential items. Fortunately however, the ‘Ujamaa failure’ caused no harm to CCM, because CCM is a “mass party” which is not, basically, anchored on adherence to ideology.
A manifestation of CCM’s inherent strength.
The fact that CCM has been able to overcome all these nagging problems, and still continued to win the subsequent general elections so handsomely, is a clear manifestation of its solid inherent strength; and this, is the inveterate strong CCM which, on 30th April, 2021, was placed under the stewardship of the new Chairperson, President Samia Suluhu Hassan. With this background information in mind, we can now return to the question:- what changes, if any, should we reasonably expect from the new leader? (will continue next week)
piomsekwa@gmail.com / 0754767576.
Source: Daily News and Cde Msekwa today
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