Lessons for South Africa from Tanzania's TV dinner election
Key topics:
Opposition banned, leaders jailed or abducted before Tanzania’s election
Regime accused of censorship, disappearances, and violent repression
International bodies condemn sham vote and call for justice for Lissu and Heche
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On Wednesday, Tanzanians went to the polls to elect a new president.
This was a TV dinner election, however, pre-cooked for heating up before serving.
The regime had banned the main opposition, Chadema, and thrown its leader, Tundu Lissu, in jail on treason charges in April. The Secretary General of Chadema, John Heche, was more recently abducted when attempting to attend the funeral of Raila Odinga in neighbouring Kenya, and has not been seen since.
Citizens have responded with street protests. Even though the regime has shut down the internet, there is video evidence of the eruption of public protest.
By even the loosest standards, the Tanzanian election was not free or fair. Already the European Parliament has issued a statement, noting: “No election can be credible when the main opposition is silenced, when freedom of assembly and expression are denied, and when independent media are intimidated and censored. Reports of irregularities, obstruction of observers and targeted violence against critical voices have further eroded the integrity of this electoral process.”
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In June a UN panel of experts described the government’s actions as “unacceptable”, saying it had counted more than 200 disappearances since 2019.
In September, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said it had documented cases of politically motivated assault, harassment, abduction and torture and “extensive restrictions” on media and civil society organisations.
Tundu Lissu was arrested and prevented from contesting the election after he questioned the way the state was conducting the poll. Other senior members of the Chadema opposition party are either in prison or continually harassed.
With the opposition out of the picture, President Samia Suluhu Hassan and the CCM dominated the official media with a farcical ‘campaign’ against a slate of unknown opponents with no substantive capacity to contest the election.
Fierce critic
A former head of the bar association, Lissu has built a reputation as a fierce critic of government, especially those of Presidents John Magufuli, whose administration he accused of the systematic looting of public funds, and Samia Hassan, who has pretended to be a reformer while systematically overseeing the rapid regression to one-party rule.
Elected as MP in 2010, Lissu was arrested six times in 2017, accused of insulting the president and disturbing public order, among other charges. Then, on 7 September that year, he was shot 16 times in the parking lot of his parliamentary residence. After many months in hospital and some 19 operations, he returned to Tanzania in January 2023. No one was convicted for the attack on his life.
Tanzanians have been denied any credible electoral alternative for president by the Independent National Electoral Commission. With such a lack of political competition goes a lack of oversight, the rule of law and accountability.
This is a recipe for social unrest as the majority of the population stayed away from the election and took to the streets to demonstrate their anger.
Sham election
We call on those in the international community who value democracy and want a stable, functional Tanzania, to reject the results of this sham election and to demand the immediate release of Lissu, Heche and other political prisoners and detainees.
Samia Hassan cannot be given a free pass to return Tanzania to one-party rule while trampling the rights of her citizens.
Justice for Tundu Lissu and John Heche is justice for all who believe in democracy. To stay silent is to be complicit in what happens in Tanzania, and possibly in your own country next.
*The authors are all members of the Platform for African Democrats.
This article was first published by Daily Friend and is republished with permission