THE PARTY AND POLITICS IN TANZANIA K.Miti* The pre-independence party in Africa was the main organizing centre of the Mrican opposition to the colonial regime. The party acted as a unifying organ of all the Africans and their organizations. For example, TANU sought to bring under its umbrella all types of African organizations in the country - trade unions, farmers and pastoral unions, commercial organizations, professional groups, youth movements, women's movements, sports Clubs, entertainment groups, tribal organizations etc in its opposition against .the colonial regime (1954 TANU constitution). With independence, the party achieved its goal. If new goals and roles were not assigned to it, its continued existence was itijeopardy. Fanon (1968) envisaged three possible developments for the party after independence: (1) disintegration - with independence the party disintegrates leaving nothing but the shell of a party, the name, the emblem, and the motto; the local party leaders are given administrative jobs ... and the militants disappear into the crowd and take the empty title of citizen (Fanon 1968:171); (2) progressive transformation of the party into an information serVice - the party acts like a barometer and as an information service. The militant is turned into an informer - the party plays understudy to the administration and the police, and controls the masses - the party helps the goverrunent to hold the people down. It becomes more and more clearly anti-democratic, an instrument of coercion (Fanon 1968: 171); (3) turning itself into a tool of the people, through which they decide on the policy that the government carries out ... the party becomes the direct expression of the masses, the energetic spokesman and the incorruptible defender of the masses (Fanon 1968: 185). The third possibility represents the ideal of what a true party in the post-independence period should be, but at the same time the most unlikely development, according to Fanon. TANU (particularly after the Arusha declaration in 1967) and later CCM (since the merger of TANU and ASP in 1977) claims to have become such a party . To what extent is this self-description of the party in Tanzania in resonance with reality? To answer this question we shall take a critica1look at the chanpng role and function of TANU/CCM since independence. 1961-1965: Defining the New Rolefor the Party Once independence was achieved and what came to be referred to as the TANU Government (in as far as its legitimacy stemmed from having been formed by party leaders) took over power, there was confusion as to the role the party should play in the newly independent Tanganyika. Slowly the party was being overshadowed or I better, being substituted by the government. As far back as 1900 Nyerere had stated, on becoming Chief Minister, that policy was to be decided by central government • K. Mitl- Lecturer. Departmcnt.ofPolitIcclSdence. UnivenityofDara Salaam. 187 Mitl-Party and PoUtlcs and not by local party representatives and that political party organs should not be concerned with the execution or implementation of policy. Party organs and representatives could ensure a good public reception of government policies but the responsibility for carrying out government policies was to lie with the civil service (Chief Minister's Circular Letter No. 1 of 1960). Nyerere was to repeat this substitution of the party by the government in policy formulation, implementation and decision making in his independence message to TANU in 1961. He stated then that "it is the job of the government to work out an overall plan and to chart the direction in which we move, just as the TANU National Executive in the past workedout the tacticsof the struggle" (Nyerere 1966: 140). In the same message Nyerere hoped that TANU would be a broad channel upon which ideas flow back and forth - "through it the people can and must express their desires and worries to the government. 11rrough it the government can and must explain to the people what it is doing ~d why" (Nyerere 1966. 140); and that it would continue mobilizing and organizing the people for self help activities. In the past, despite cblonial government oppositon, we have started educational campaigns, we have organized voluntary effort, we have even started our own adult college. Now we must intensify these activities, cooperating with the new government and co-ordinating our activities so that the direct initiatives of the people supplements the work which government can do and is supplemented by it. (Nyerere 1966: 140). To these two Nyerere added a third, but more vague role for the party in 1962. The party was called upon to work for the people and take care of their day to day problems. In TANU na Raia (TANU and the Citizen) Nyerere writes that: The job of TAND is to work for the people. We cannot be a truly people's party if we do not involve ourselves in the normal problems of our people ... 1 have given the example of somebody's house being burnt as one of the problems that daily face our people. But there are so many problems of this type. Sickness, death, harvest, getting food at least for one day, various travelling problems, and many different problems that face our brothers everyday. If we are people's leaders, and our party a people's party, then there is no problem of the people that we can say does not concern us. TANU is the one group in our country that must concern itself with everybody's problem (Nyerere 1962: 3). Though there was no thought of abandoning the party altogether, it was slowly being relegated to second place by government administration to which the former parI y leaders had been incorporated. The party was at this juncture considered as an information channel though not in the pejorative sense in which Fanon envisaged it. Besides, it was to act as a mobilization agent of the government whenever called to do so for specific purposes like in the Self-help schemes where it was to supplement the community development efforts of the government. Finally, TANU was expected to act as a welfare organ for the people, a field that was totally beyond government action. 188 Utanti-Vol. 5 No.2 December 1980 By 1964 however, a new role for TAND was beginning to emerge. TANU began to be seen as a unifying and stabilizing element. This vision was to gain credence in particular after the army mutiny. But even before that TANU was beginning to be depicted not just as a party but rather a nationalist movement uniting all sections of society. Writing in "Democracy and the Party System'\ (1963) Nyerere had noted that Our own Parties (TANU) had a very differ~nt origin. They were not formed to challenge any ruling groups of our own people; they were formed to challenge the foreigners who ruled us. They were not therefore political 'parties' i.e., factions - but nationalist movements. And from the outset they represented the interests and aspirations of the whole nation (Nyerere 1966: 198) The struggle for independence necessitated unity of all the oppressed under the nationalist movement. The task facing the new gove11ll1}entcalls for a similar unity "this, no less than the struggle against colonialism, calls for the maximum united effort by the whole country if it is to succeed. There can be no room for differences or division" (Nyerere 1961: 9). This new unity, like the old unity, can only be achieved under the party - nationalist movement. But a national movement which is open to all, which is identified with the whole nation, has nothing to fear from the discontent of any excluded section of society, for there is then no such section of society. (Nyerere 1966: 201). From the above argument Nyerere goes on to identify membership in this nationalist movement with patriotism -Any member of our movement [which in this context, means any patriotic citizen since it is the national movement we are talking about] would be free to stand as a candidate if he so wished - (Nyerere 1966: 202). A step further and NyereJ;e calls for the elimination of the party - a symbiosis of the two. There would be no need to hold one set of elections within the Party and another set afterwards for the public. In our case, for example, the present distinction between TANU and the TANU-Govemment, a distinction which, us a matter of fact, our people do not understand, would vanish. We should simply have leaders chosen by the people to do the job (Nyerere 1966: 202). There is in Nyerere's formulation, as Bienen (1964) was to note, a conscious obliteration of the party-state distinction, and the stressing of the all embracing aspect of TAND as a "union", that is. a national movement embracing all Tanganyika. Bienen concludes his article thus: (The) party in Tanganyika, and in much of Mrica, is considered as an entity not n~sarily less than coextensive with the state and society as a whole. When Mr. Mboya writes that the Party is the Government he is not merely saying in short hand that KANU now forms a ruling party which constitutes a government in Kenya. He is saying something much more akin to the equating of Party, Government, state and people - something like "the Convention People's Party is Ghana and Ghana is the Convention People's Party". The distinction that has been made in western political cornrnentary between party and state is a distinction not accepted in Mrica. President Nyerere has claimed that the people of Tanganyika do not understand this distinction (Bienen 1964: 29). 189 MId-Party .. d poJitia Bienen attributes this mystification to the fact that (1) the colonial government was one of administrative politics and not PartY politics - hence the party - government symbiosis (2) the function of government are fulfilled by an array of structures and the functions of the governing party are fulfilled by an array of structures - hence the intermingling of the two. This attribution to colonial legacy and similarity of functions is not convincing at all. Goulboume (1977b) on the other hand regards this as an expression of the unitary ideology of the petty-bourgeoisie, that sought to establish its own hegemony and safeguard the accumulation of surplus. In this context the party was to become the integrative institution. For him one of the main changes with political independence was the realignment of social-economic forces "The development of a new petty-bourgeoisie alongside existing small owners who were also able to expand, the new arrangements between this class and the national-international bourgeoisie as a result of the political representation of the indigenous petty-bourgeoisie necessitated the founding of integrative institutions - in other words what is usually referred to in behavioral political science as institution building. In Tanzania TANU played this role' after independence and until CCM was founded, continued to do so within a developing social formation" (Goulbourne 1977b: 14). At best it can be noted that the pre-independence unity of the African population began to crumble after independence and the arising conflicts between different sections was threatening to mar the production process and the stability of the regime itself. The conflict between the Tanganyika Federation of Labour (TFL) and the Government and the army mutiny (1964) are representative of this type of conflict (Friedland 1967; Tordoff 1967; Bienen 1965; Ginwala 1964). This new unity could not contiiiue to dqlend solely on the presidency, but also on me institution of the Party. The Republican constitution of 1962 had established the executive presidency system. It had been argued at the time that the enormous economic and social tasks ahead of the country called for unity. And this was interpreted as rallying behind a leader, realigning all efforts behind effective leadership. In the pursuit of 'life more abundant' for all Tanganyikans, we need to rally behind a leader who can do things. Every ounce of the nation's strength in now needed because of the challel!Bes which confront us on the economic, social educational and ethical fronts (Hansard 28 June 1962 col. 1086). The presidency was expected to overcome divisions and act both as a stabilizing and mobilizing organ. With time however the institution of the presidency alone did not prove to be effective for guaranteeing unity and stability in the country. Another institution was necessary to supplement the presidency. There were two possible institutions on which to base the new efforts of unity and stability: The Party and the civil service. The civil service had been the instrument of rule of the colonial regime (thus discredited) and was not strong enough, being composed of foreigners and newly promoted apolitical African civil servants. In fact the first political crisis in .190 UtafItI-Vol. 5 No.1 DeeealMr1. Tanzania 1hat led to Nyerere's resignation as Prime Minister in January 1962 was centred on this institution - which the politicians wanted not only Africanized but also subordinated to the politicians. Given the above circumstances the civil service mstitution could not therefore serve as an instrument of unity and stability. The_ Party that had served as a unifying and moderating factor in the pre-independence days was seen as able to play the same role in the post-independence era. It was this intention in view that a call for a one-party state system was made. 1965 -1970 Institutionalization of the One-Party State System. The decision to have a one-party state was made in January 1963, however, the appointment of the commission to work out the details ~ made in January 1964. In his guidelines to the commission the president stressed.the fact that it was not the' work of the commission to consider whether Tanganyika should be a One Party State. That decision has already been taken. Their task is to say what kind of One Party State we should have in the context of our national ethic and in accordance with the principles which I have instructed the commission to have (Commission Report 1965:1) Among the instructions given to the commission was that - Tanganyika shall remain a Republic. with an executive head of state: Thus the commission was from the start prohibited to consider the presIdency"save with regard on how he should be elected. This fact is important for as we have noted above the institution of the presidency was both a unifying and stabilizing organ. This organ could not be tampered with. The commission was charged to consider ftrst the Party - Government relationship, in particular tlieir representative ergans. Here the question of amalgamation or not of party and goVCl11D1mtbodies was to be resolved. SpeCiftcally the commission was asked to consider (a) the existence of the National Assembly and the National Executive Committee ef TANU and their relationship (b) the existence of District Committees of TANU and District Councils and their relationship (c) should qualiftcations be laid dewn for ItJ.embership of the legislature, or any other policy-making body; if so. what qualiftcations, who shall determine whether these are possessed by candidates. Second the commission was to make recommendations on (a) Party membership - should membership be open to all without regard to opinions in any issue, character, or any other matter except Tanpnyika citizenship, (b) Party organs - through which National policy is formulated, the people's will constantly fmds expression, changes can be brought about through peaceful means and corruption or abuse of power is overcome. On lhe issue of Party - Government relationship the connnission rejected the president's amalgamation proposals noted above. The commission notes that: Our fIrst approach. to this problem was to consider the possibility of amalgamating the NEC and Parliament by substituting a single authority to carry out the functions now Jl1ldertaken separately. This ideal is attractive. It has the merit of simplicity. Simplicity is important if the ordilwry ~tizen is to 191 MItt-Party .... PolItks follow and participate in the process of govern,ment. It also has the merit of emphasizing the identity between Party and Government to which we have already referred. However, we have on balance rejected the possibility of amalgamation (Commission Report 1965: 40). The reasons given for this rejection are that (1) Their roles are essentially different. NEC is concerned with the formulation of the broad lines of policy while Parliament is concerned with giving effect to government policy through appropriate legislation measures and exercising vigilant control over all aspects of goveinment expenditure. (2) The NEC is elected by Party members while Parliament is elected by universal suffrage. But while both institutions were retained, the National Assembly was turned into a rubber stamping body of the NEC decisions. As Kjekshus notes, the constitutional changes in 1965 led to a position where; Parliament's functions are negligible and ideally resticted to an august replay of consensus' themes worked out in"the process of Party deliberations of policy measures. Parliament's present position in legislation and as a control instrument is strictly circumscribed by the Party and Parliament's original role in the political system would seem to be in doubt (Kjekshus 1974: 79). In fact the constitutional changes with regard to the relationship between the NEC and the National Assembly sparked off a confrontation between the two organs which ended up in the subjugation of the Assembly and the expulsion from the Party and hence from the Assembly of nine members of Parliament. 1bis confrontation is well documented elsewhere and nee