On 27th and 28th October 2020, about 15 million (of 29 million) Tanzanian voters went to the polls in one of the lowest voter turnouts in the country’s democratic history. 

The sixth multiparty elections had been preceded by the country’s biggest collapse in the rule of law and fundamental freedoms. Consequently, the electorate may have lost faith in the whole electoral system and institutions such as the National Electoral Commission (NEC), the police and other security forces. This explains the pathetic turnout. 

Counting the political cost to democracy: Death, persecution and disenfranchisement

In Zanzibar, before a vote was cast, there were already reports of at least three deaths. 200 opposition leaders had been arrested across the country while at least five of their compatriots had been killed in the line of duty. 

The leading opposition candidate Tundu Lissu had himself survived 38 gun shots in September 2017, narrowly escaping death in an assassination attempt he has personally blamed President Magufuli for. The latter swore in public in March 2016 to rid the country of the opposition by the next election. 

True to his word, opposition politicians have been banned from holding public rallies or internal party meetings since 2016 as they watch their colleagues like Alphonce Mawazo maimed and butchered in broad daylight. 

Two local councilors and one party operative were murdered in 2017 and 2018, respectively, and by March 2020 the entire leadership of the leading opposition party Chadema were convicted and sentenced to six months’ imprisonment for leading a rally in February 2018. They were protesting the refusal by the National Electoral Commission (NEC) to admit their party agents in a local by-election. During the protest, the police shot and killed college student Akwilima Aquiline and publicly admitted responsibility, only to later reframe the charges against Chadema leaders.

In the November 2019 local elections, the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) party, Africa’s longest-serving liberation party, whitewashed the opposition with the full support of a partisan Tanzania Intelligence Services. The elections saw the disqualification of 94% of opposition candidates rendering the poll a one-horse race. The CCM subsequently “won” over 93% of all local government seats. Consequently, the local elections attracted a spectacularly low turn out with observers estimating it at lower than 13%. In many villages and streets today, Tanzanians are led by public officials they never voted for. This violent and military inception of leadership has gradually taken root and become the norm in Tanzanian politics today. 

Enter impunity: The end of accountability in Tanzania

The 2020 elections have set many dangerous precedents which will take years to undo. 

That the NEC can be so partisan and partial that they disqualify one third of only opposition candidates while suspending the opposition presidential candidates from campaigning is a devastating reversal of hard won gains. That the Electoral Commission may decide who has a right to observe and who doesn’t and is so abrasive as to prescribe what election observers can and can not do or say is preposterous to say the least. 

In the end, until today, three weeks after the elections nobody really knows the vote tallies of the parliamentary and presidential candidates as no results were displayed at polling stations, as prescribed by law. This is just one illustration of  the extent to which impunity has become ingrained in the commission and the Tanzanian authorities at large.

Impunity therefore will be the defining characteristic of the next term for President Magufuli. Using such impunity, it is predicted by many that the president will overturn the presidential term limit prescribed in Article 40 of the Constitution of the Republic of Tanzania. 

The same impunity will be the order of the day in parliament where over half of the parliamentarians effectively owe their seats to the president. With a judiciary captured by the state, the maiming, abduction and killing of opposition politicians as well as vocal civil society and media leaders will take root in an environment where accountability has been erased from political discourse. 

What role for external actors and civil society?

Most donors are too fearful of losing (perceived) access to the state that they will quickly forgo their stated values to recognise, endorse and cozy up to the Magufuli administration as the Canadian government has already done. Most naively engage the administration not realising that doing so pacifies what is already a horrendous human rights situation. With at least 11 people killed and over 600 fleeing their homes and a brewing insurgency in southern Tanzania, donors will have to think twice about what their rules of engagement are. They must remember that the Magufuli administration is keen not on any principled engagement but simply their money, which after receiving he will throw jabs yet again at them, calling them “imperialists”.

As for civil society, this is the time to buckle up. As the onslaught on opposition politicians comes to a pause, civil society and media are on the list. This is the time to learn new skills of survival including being politically savvy in an authoritarian setting. 

The line between the opposition and civil society will grow increasingly thin, necessitating effective collaboration between both parties. Politicians are being prosecuted and are quickly becoming an endangered species in Tanzania, which necessitates solidarity based on shared values and principles. As civil society can no longer express itself safely within the country, it is now imperative to amplify voices through regional and international networks, because if there is any opportunity left to hold Tanzania accountable then it is through regional and international forums.

Implications for democracy in Africa

Tanzania played a key role in the liberation of southern Africa as the leader of the frontline states during president Mwalimu Julius Nyerere’s time from the 1960s. Yet now the legacy of both Tanzania and Nyerere being a leader in the liberation of Africa from colonial oppression and supporting southern African countries to achieve one person, one vote, is up in smoke. 

Magufuli shifts Tanzania to be a leader in authoritarian consolidation through sustained onslaught on civic space, human rights and political activism. Many regimes in Africa are looking at the Tanzania model of electoral democracy. With concerns already being raised on democratic regression in many African countries such as Uganda, Ethiopia, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Guinea, Egypt and Zimbabwe to name a few, the Tanzania example needs a decisive response from the international community and African people of character.

If the past first five years were difficult for democratic actors in Tanzania then the next term will move closer to impossible. But as the famous Indian phrase goes “in the end it will be well, if it isn’t well it isn’t yet the end”. DM/MC

Maverick Citizen knows the identity of the author of this article, who has requested anonymity to avoid retribution from the Magufuli government. 

The Southern Africa Human Rights Roundup is a weekly column aimed at highlighting important human rights news in southern Africa. It integrates efforts of human rights defenders and facilitates evidence-based engagement with key stakeholders, and institutions on the human rights situation across the region. 

The weekly roundup is a collaboration between the Southern Africa Human Rights Defenders Network (SAHRDN) and Maverick Citizen.