President of the United Republic of Tanzania, Dr. Samia Suluhu Hassan, has been in power for about three years since her excellence. Samia’s government has demonstrated behaviour that indicates that its promises might never come into reality. Citizens’ expectations of good governance, the rule of law, and respect for humans will not be effectively realised.
As the first female president in the country, she gave her the advantage of paving the way for the next generations to have equal access to power and resources. Feminist scholars hold that the poor performance, ineffectiveness, and inefficiency of just one female president do not generalise the whole population of women as weak and incapable of ruling since, for example, Tanzania had five male presidents before her.
The questions here are: Did all five male presidents deliver effectively and efficiently? Were they accountable and contributed anything to consolidating democracy, the rule of law, and human rights? Does their ineffectiveness and poor performance disqualify all males as unfit for ruling the country?
Every person is unique and should be given chances to express their capabilities as a person and not as a sample of a larger group. Therefore, despite Samia’s excellence and shortcomings in her ruling, that does not mean all women will demonstrate equal failure and mismanagement.
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Some activists have advised her to study the country carefully since Tanzania is one of the most difficult states to rule, and I think they have missed the point. These activists fail to forecast if Tanzania will fall on coercion to contain opposition and eliminate proponent activists, considering that she has been in politics since she was a young girl and her position as Vice president was not by accident.
Still, she has proven to be politically and administratively capable of holding such an intelligent office; she has practically studied the country’s politics her entire professional life. Her ascending to top political positions in the country allows her to copy and paste some undemocratic administrative strategies.
She has learnt to ignore recommendations from national and international activists, the legal system, interest groups, and civil society organisations.
This article does not intend to incriminate the Honourable President and her glorified government. It only highlights areas that her government has no interest or passion in improving and calls upon civil society organisations, interest groups, and NGOs to stand firm and pressure the government to deliver on all made promises.
The 4Rs philosophy, considered game-changing and the cornerstone of her excellent government, effectively manipulated oppositional parties. This was followed by a CHADEMA grand demonstration at Umoja House and the return of political rallies.
The right to demonstrate and conduct political rallies was given as a gift and not entitled to citizens of Tanzania just for the name of peace and stability of the country; therefore, whenever the government feels threatened or weak, these rights might be taken, considering the arrest of CHADEMA youths and their leaders from conducting youth gathering at Mbeya, the strategy to maintain peace does nothing to consolidate it, relative depression theory of conflict resolution studies highlights the potential danger that Tanzanian authorities cultivate.
Political tolerance, freedom of expression, and the November election will not be free and fair.
Through the line “copy and paste some undemocratic administrative strategies.”
Following each and everything that democracy needs can lead to economic development in our African countries? Since what we call democracy is the something originated from outside and sometimes can’t relate to our contexts
Apart from the democracy we preach today. What is African democracy? What is democracy originated in Africa?
I’m not asking/ speaking to defend president Samia suluhu. Its for understanding.