For keen observers, Chadema’s call for mass demos was punctured by a lack of cohesion and fuzzy identity politics. Those who initiated the demonstration did not impress upon the youth as one of their own. Overfed Chadema leaders who are irked by nothing more than their exclusion from the high table deluded themselves; they had some leverage to bully the government and cede some ground.
Sadly, those deceitful bluffs were called off yesterday. The sizes of the demonstration told a better story than anything else. This discourse looks at what went wrong with Chadema’s last political gamble and why the future for all opposition political parties is much dimmer now than before Chadema made a fool out of herself.
Chadema’s strength is in X-world, where infantrymen and women armed with smartphones and clicking some keyboards made their latest incursion look like a credible Tsunami of change and very promising. One after another promised a “mother of all maandamano” but went on to deliver a “mother of all retreats”.
Tanzanian voters are not dumb and are fully aware that behind Chadema’s clamour for constitutional change and restoration of democracy ensconced as “free the abductees and accountability from police’s lawlessness” lies a facade cloaking power-hungry hyenas.
Chadema’s nadir is not a mass political party but a vanguard one like CCM. While Chadema may want us to believe in its deceitful slogan: “PEOPLE’S POWER!” it has become to our rude awakening it is a vacuous meme to create a veneer of being a mass party while it is not.
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A day before the elections of 2020, Chadema’s kingpin, Freeman Aikael Mbowe, made some broadside which revealed the subplot inside Chadema’s grand plan for governance. He said: “..sasa ninajua wewe Tundu Lissu utakuwa Rais na mimi nitakuwa waziri mkuu wako.”
Mbowe confirmed what we already knew: Chadema is a vehicle of a coterie of the very few insiders determined to ascend to power at all costs. It was about themselves on our uncharitable behalf. Why should we credit Chadema for anything once we realize that mongering is what drives them to date?
It narrates why they have knifed their constitution to stay in power until death. One Chadema Gen-Z called Mdude once advised in 2015; “….nyie wazee kaeni pembemi mtupishe sisi vijana tuwaonyeshe CCM kazi….” That call for the pack’s internal reshuffling was not even given a hearing!
What Mdude was agitating for was both Tundu Lissu and Mbowe had then and still have outlived their purpose and should heed a call of “KUNG’ATUKA” Where is PEOPLE’S POWER when decibels for internal reforms within Chadema were ignored?
Before the 2019 local government elections, Chadema toyed with boycotting the elections. Still, somehow, they were towed to the slaughterhouse and lost most of the seats they had bagged in the previous elections.
In 2020, Mbowe fired brimstone: “…..kama mtatufanyia uhuni kama ule mliotufanyia kwenye uchaguzi wa serikali za mitaa PATACHIMBIKA…” After the elections of 2020, Chadema were bared at the ballot box and cried about election fraud. Even Mbowe could not keep his Hai constituency seat.
He was whitewashed, and even before the elections, one senior police officer had forewarned him that he was looking at a humiliation at the ballot box. And that was what happened.
Once Chadema saw her path to the state house was mired by unprecedented massive election rigging, she breathed fire and promised massive demos to protest against electoral fraud. One reporter quizzed them on achieving that, knowing the police would never permit them to demo.
They replied that what they thought they knew was the police’s responsibility. On the day earmarked for mass demonstrations, no principal Chadema leader was seen participating.
It became clear to their faithful that their leaders were unprepared for a big time. Everybody was too happy to retire to their homes without attracting the ire of ladies and gentlemen in military attire.
In today’s maandamano, police arrested 14 Chadema leaders, and their ‘maandamano’q was whittled down like a flickered candle. I could watch a few videos on X as ring leaders were being rounded up, and without any resistance or incident, they complied with police no-nonsense orders. They were taken in waiting police cars and ferried to unknown destinations.
This raises questions about Chadema’s top leader’s ability to walk the talkie. They are skilled at captivating rhetoric but lack the imagination and leadership qualities to advance causes dear to their hearts.
What is the use to descend with a “shout of an archangel” only to dissipate in the hands of waiting police? Chadema crowds are getting thinner and thinner, with many jobless youth showing curious interest but having no intention of getting beaten by police gavels.
As the calls for the demonstration continue to fail to elicit public interest, we are not far from even the police not turning up to stop them. They will monitor future crowd’ size with drones, not fuel-guzzling helicopters or vehicles.
The appetite for arresting rudderless Chadema leaders will wane as a waste of time because they no longer pose an existential threat to CCM.
ALSO, READ CHADEMA’s Political Protests Fuel CCM’s Victory; You Could Say It’s a ‘JOGGING’ of Mobilization
If Chadema was a democracy, following the damning failure to effect change through demonstration, top brass in the central committee would have called a day accepting responsibility for lacking ideas on how to be an achiever. They would have heeded the advice from one of their own to call it quits.
Chadema’s top brass will never resign but will keep taking many for a ride in a cause they do not believe in. If they did, they would have sacrificed their interest to bag a score and show reverence to their original constitutional order.
I will never tire of advising the Chadema central committee to seriously consider downing their tools and allowing the Chadema Gen-Z, led by Mdude and others of like-minded people, to take charge. These energetic youths have nothing to lose, so they can inspire their fellow youths to dream bigger and bigger.
They can convince them to envision a more egalitarian Tanzania, which is possible only if they can sacrifice everything they have ever aspired for a greater cause. Suppose they can once do for the betterment of the following and subsequent generations, unlike an ordinary politician who is muzzled by the next election.
Once the youth is unified under one cohesive force, nothing CCM can unleash will stand before them. It takes millions and millions of jobless youth thronging our streets to force CCM to a negotiating table. Chadema, as currently constituted, lacks the moral authority to spearhead meaningful reforms.
Maybe this was good karma, for I can easily see that Chadema’s cancer may soon get a lifetime chemotherapy. If past rulings are anything to go by at magistrates courts, the demonstration linchpins may end up sentenced to over one year, technically terminating their political careers.
During the early days of multiparty democracy, Reverend Mtikila was sentenced to one year, which he dutifully served. When he came out, he claimed he was a jailbird for political reasons.
In those days, NEC acquiesced to Mtikila’s cockeyed legal reasoning, but there is a saying that urges us to perform today as tomorrow there will be a law against it.
Law is not always about legislating new statutes but entrenching the latest jurisprudence that can only be secured by interpreting the existing law. This is the endgame for our political conmen.
Bye-bye, Tundu Lissu, bye-bye, Mbowe. It was nice meeting you. Your Broadway acts of omissions or commissions have been numbered and found wanting. In politics, competition is too stiff these days to allow the luxuries of second chances.
There will be none for you this time around. You are done, big time!
