Tanzania: Political parties 1950-1995

Updated August 2010

The Tanganyika African National Union (TANU) led by Julius Nyerere, formed on 7 July 1954 to work for independence, rapidly became a mass based popular political party that, together with its allies amongst White and Asians, won all the seats in the first Legislative Council elections held in 1959 and led Tanganyika to independence from the United Kingdom on 9 December 1961 (see the Rise of Nationalism (1945-1961) for details). The overwhelming dominance of TANU was demonstrated again in elections in 1962 (Columbia Encyclopedia 2004, PBS Foundation Undated). In Zanzibar the British supported Zanzibar Nationalist Party (ZNP, formed in December 1955) of the Arab elite and the Afro-Shirazi Party (ASP, formed on 5 February 1957) representing the Shirazi and African majority competed for power, but with British gerrymandering and the support of a breakaway faction of the ASP (Zanzibar and Pemba People's Party (ZPPP)) a ZNP/ ZPPP coalition was able to take power despite the ASP winning a plurality and then a majority of the votes in the 1961 and 1963 elections (Othman 2004; Temwende 2004, 1; Government of Tanzania undated, Karume 2005. See Formation of Political Parties , 1957 Election, 1961 elections and 1963 Elections for details). Though the ZNP/ ZPPP coalition led Zanzibar to independence in December 1963 it was overthrown in a popular uprising two month later and, with Nyerere's support, the ASP was able to seize power under the leadership of Abeid Karume (Temwende 2004, 1, Karume 2005).

In April 1964 a union was formed, named the United Republic of Tanzania in October, with Nyerere as President and Karume as Vice-President (Columbia Encyclopedia 2004, PBS Foundation Undated). Tanzania was proclaimed a one-party state in 1965, despite the intractableness of Karume who refused to merge his ASP with Nyerere's TANU, but in 1972 Karume was assassinated and eventually on 5 February 1977 TANU and ASP merged to form the Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM, "Party of the Revolution"); the adoption of a new Constitution on 25 April 1977 followed, which made Tanzania a de jure one party state (Temwende 2004, 1; Talbot 2000, Columbia Encyclopedia 2004). However, the socialist experiments engaged in between 1961 and 1986 proved to be catastrophic and Tanzania was progressive reduced to penury, but economic reforms imposed by the IMF increased social misery without yielding any turn about in the economy(for details see Union and Ujamaa (1961-1976), Failure of Ujamaa (1976-1986) and Economic and political reform (1985-1996)).

Internal liberalisation, disillusionment with the one party state amongst intellectuals within and without the CCM (including and especially Nyerere) within the context of the post Cold War wave of democratisation in Africa opened up new space (Chachage 2003. See Economic and political reform (1985-1996)). The government appointed the Nyalali Commission to look into the transformation of Tanzania from a one party to a multi party democracy which recommended, against the will of 80% of Tanzanians that it polled, that Tanzania become a multi party democracy; ignoring the Commission's recommendations for a inclusive process of constitutional and electoral reform the CCM pushed through unilateral amendments to the Constitution that legalised political party plurality in July 1992, passed the Political Parties (Act No 5 of 1992), reformed the electoral laws and conducted multi party elections for local government in 1994 and for the presidency and the National Assembly in December 1995 (Chachage 2003, Temwende 2004, 2).

References

CHACHAGE, CSL 2003 "Globalization and Democratic Governance in Tanzania", Development Policy Management Forum, [www] http://www.dpmf.org/Publications/Occassional%20Papers/occasionalpaper10.pdf [PDF document, opens new window] (accessed 23 Feb 2010).

COLUMBIA ENCYCLOPEDIA 2004, Sixth Edition, "Tanzania", [www] http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=101273670 [opens new window] (accessed 23 Feb 2010).

GOVERNMENT OF TANZANIA UNDATED "History", [www] http://www.tanzania.go.tz/history.html [opens new window] (accessed 23 Feb 2010).

KARUME, S 2005 "Brief History of Elections and Transition to Multiparty Elections" IN Election Update 2005: Tanzania Number 1, EISA, 4-5, [www] http://www.eisa.org.za/PDF/eutz200501.pdf [PDF document].

OTHMAN, H 2004 "Forty years of the union: Is it withering away?", IPP Media, April 26, 2004 [www] http://ipp.co.tz/ipp/guardian/2004/04/26/9615.html [opens new window] (accessed 23 Feb 2010).

PBS FOUNDATION UNDATED "Tanzania Overview", [www] http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/commandingheights/lo/countries/tz/tz_overview.html [opens new window] (accessed 23 Feb 2010).

TALBOT, A 2000 "Nyerere's legacy of poverty and repression in Zanzibar" World Socialist Web Site, International Committee of the Fourth International, [www] http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/nov2000/zanz-n15.shtml [opens new window] (accessed 23 Feb 2010) .

TEMWENDE, OK 2004 "Tanzania: A Political and Historical Overview", Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES), [www] http://tanzania.fes-international.de/doc/bot-historical-overview.pdf [opens new window] (accessed 23 Feb 2010).