Tanzania: Main electoral trends (1961-2005)
Extracted from: Grant Masterson 2009 "Chapter 13: Tanzania and Zanzibar" IN Denis Kadima and Susan Booysen (eds) Compendium of Elections in Southern Africa 1989-2009: 20 Years of Multiparty Democracy, EISA, Johannesburg, 510-513.
Shortly after the independence of Tanganyika in 1961, the country became a de jure one-party state, although until 1977 the existence of two ruling parties on the mainland and Zanzibar islands confounded this. The merger of the Afro-Shirazi Party from Zanzibar and the Tanganyika African National Union (Tanu) from the mainland in 1977 created the CCM party and the realisation of a de facto one-party state in Tanzania. During this period, the division between the party and the state became negligible, with party and state structures so closely related as to render the differences nugatory.
The end of the one-party state system was ushered in during a period of economic distress in Tanzania during the late 1980s, and this prompted increased international pressure on the government to open up the political space in Tanzania to multiparty contests. The president of the Union, Ali Hassan Mwinyi, instituted a commission under Chief Justice Francis Nyalali to investigate the views of Tanzanians on the idea of multiparty contestations in response to these pressures. The Nyalali Commission found that although more people polled stated their preference for the continuation of the one-party system, there was a significant minority who expressed their desire for a multiparty system. The commission further recommended that in preparation for a move towards a multiparty dispensation, various reforms to the state and CCM party machinery needed to take place. These recommendations were mostly left unimplemented as the country moved towards multiparty elections. The country's first multiparty elections were held in October 1995, and, as expected, the CCM won a sizeable majority in the new National Assembly. The administration of the elections faced several challenges, and several of the opposition parties complained about the conduct of the NEC and the CCM candidates in some areas. The major problems during the elections appear to have related to CCM use of state resources during the campaign, and the calculations used to allocate seats in the national assembly used by the National Electoral Commission.
In Zanzibar, parallel elections for the Zanzibar presidency and National Assembly returned the CCM with a majority in the house, although the opposition Civic United Front (CUF) polled slightly more votes in the popular vote but received two fewer seats in the National Assembly. The tightness of the margins in Zanzibar raised the spectre of twin centres of power within the Union for the first time since the merger of Tanu and ASP, and concerns that a CUF victory would see Zanzibar secede from the Union. This saw the political temperature raised in Zanzibar in the lead-up to the 2000 presidential and National Assembly elections. Whilst the CCM continued its dominance of the Union Assembly, the 2000 elections in Zanzibar were marked by heightened tensions between the CCM and CUF on Zanzibar. Donor assistance to Zanzibar was frozen in the aftermath of the flawed 1995 elections, and the imprisonment of 18 CUF members on charges of treason after the 1995 elections became a rallying cry by the opposition regarding the inequitable conditions under which the 2000 elections were to take place. The tensions persisted throughout the campaign period. On Election Day, both parties alleged that the other party was guilty of "importing" voters from other areas into districts to load the vote in their favour. However, without a national identification system, these allegations were difficult to objectively verify.
This time, the CCM won 35 out of the 50 seats, with the CUF winning 15 seats, all from Pemba Island (the smaller of Zanzibar's islands). Violence broke out in the aftermath of the 2000 elections, when protesting CUF supporters clashed with police and security forces in Pemba, Unguja (the larger island) and in some parts of Dar es Salaam. The violence necessitated a new agreement between the two parties, known as Muafaka II (Swahili for accord), which negotiated the conditions under which the elections in 2005 would be contested (see Table 1 for details). This chapter will not look at the original Muafaka Accord, which was negotiated prior to the 2000 elections, as there is broad consensus that this agreement between CCM and CUF was rendered entirely redundant due to a lack of political will to implement the accord on both sides. Muafaka II was far more successful in bringing both parties towards a negotiated consensus, and was in part responsible for the lessening (although not complete elimination) of political hostilities prior to and during the 2005 elections in comparison to the 2000 elections.
Table 1: The Muafaka II Accord
After the political protests against the 2000 election results by the opposition CUF, which turned violent and resulted in significant loss of life and injury, the ruling CCM and CUF negotiated the following accord regarding subsequent elections in Zanzibar:
In order to achieve these stated aims, the two parties agreed to a number of measures, including:
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The 2005 elections on the mainland were once again dominated by the CCM, and the most notable event of the elections period was the enforced postponement of the elections from October to December 2005 due to the death of a vice-presidential candidate. This de-linked the Union elections and the Zanzibar elections, as the ZEC opted to continue with its original date regardless of the Union postponement. This saw a heightened international and local observer presence in the islands on the day, as many observers transferred their credentials from the mainland to Zanzibar at the last minute due to the cancellation. Polling during the 2005 elections in the islands was less chaotic than was the case in the previous elections, although many observers noted their reservations that the elections were adequate in terms of preparation and implementation. Incidents of violence persisted, although on a smaller scale than was the case in 2000. The CCM won 30 seats and the CUF 19. On the mainland, the extended campaigning period and the reprinting of ballots created some challenges for the political parties and the NEC, and with a small number of international and local observers returning to observe the elections in December, received a credible report from those who witnessed the polls. The CCM again won a sizeable majority in the Union National Assembly, with 206 seats directly elected and another 58 seats reserved for women, giving it 264 seats out of the 307-seat National Assembly. Benjamin Mkapa stepped down after two terms as Union president to make way for incoming president Jakaya Kikwete.