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.
