Dr. Slaa is a free man after the DPP lost interest in his criminal case, which I had previously written about in length and I have no intention of repeating. Dr. Slaa says he is back in Chadema because the reasons that had pushed him out have been bypassed by events. He did not dilate in specific terms why he had eloped from Chadema in the first place, but this article will attempt to interrogate that and much more.
Dr. Slaa’s name in opposition politics is already inked in gold. His fiery brand of politicking and his intermittent fearless brushes with the authorities are well documented. A mishmash of ideology and personal interest clashes define a man behind a mirror. Little-known Dr. Slaa caught our attention when he decamped from CCM and joined Chadema after the Central Committee jettisoned his Karatu constituency’s CCM nomination in favour of Mkapa’s favourite, Patrick Qorro. In that decision to part ways with CCM, Dr. Slaa was not protesting against CCM ideology, but his political ambitions were thwarted. It was a self-interested decision but also a public one because the Karatu electorate pushed him to the CCM exit door. The Karatu voters had urged him to join Chadema and would vote him to the parliament. They kept their promise, and history was made.
After joining Chadema in 1995, he trounced Patrick Qorro, who, albeit an elitist favourite, was not popular with the voters. Once in the Augusta House, Dr. Slaa became an example of hard work and achievement. He took CCM to task on several corruption scandals akin to another graft slayer within CCM called Mzee Mzindakaya. Despite flagging the majority in the parliament, CCM struggled to find ways to contain Dr. Slaa. It was that vibrant generation of opposition parliamentarians that, later in 2016, forced the CCM to blackout parliamentary live proceedings because the incompetence of CCM MPs was brought into the living rooms of the electorate.
Dr. Slaa was in Parliament from 1995-2010, when in 2010 was nominated by Chadema to be their presidential candidate. Dr Slaa did everything right to unseat CCM, but when the NEC declaration came, we were informed he was not even close in a race to the Magogoni State House! But his loss of Karatu constituency was suspicious, even today. There was no way Karatu could have abandoned their prodigious son. For obvious reasons, ethnic pride would not have betrayed him. Those were earlier red flags that the NEC was rigging our elections. Dr. Slaa, too, made similar accusations but didn’t provide concrete proof beyond waving a couple of tallied constituency results to indicate he was massively rigged. He didn’t go to court because of a misinterpretation of the Constitution.
The constitution says that presidential declarations cannot be assailed in court if the NEC followed the election law before making them. Therefore, if there was any registered voter who had sufficient evidence that NEC had violated the law in declaring that Jakaya Kikwete had won his second and last term in 2010, the courts would have made a relevant decision. However, the real reason why judicial remedies are not preferred is due to mistrust of the courts. Most oppositionists deem courts as irreparably “damaged goods”. Therefore, it would be a waste of resources to even bother to test them. Courts can place the plaintiffs whose lawsuits they resent into a “conveyor belt” until the litigants are too atrophied to soldier on. The litigants lose interest, and the courts swiftly terminate the cases for want of prosecution!
After the 2010 elections were over, Dr. Slaa continued to be the Chadema secretary-general until a CCM mole in the name of Edward Lowassa busted their entry door in the 2015 elections. Dr. Slaa, from his own mouth, informed us in the early stages he was very thrilled with the tectonic developments. Lowassa was considered a plus despite Chadema had character assassinated him as an epitome of grand corruption. When queried why a sudden change of heart, we got three different answers. The first one was from the then Chadema chairperson Freeman Mbowe who said this: “….mimi nitakuwa mtu wa aina gani hata nimkatae Lowassa ambaye anakuja na watu wengi mno kwenye chama chetu?…..”
The second response we got was from his then astute deputy chairperson Tundu Lissu who remarked at Chadema flip-flopping over the graft characterization of Lowassa as follows: “…sisi Chadema hatujui kama Lowassa ni fisadi maana hajawahi kushtakiwa na chombo chochote kile…na kutiwa hatiani kama fisadi….” The third reaction was more or less a riposte from Dr. Slaa who conceded he was taken for a ride, and this was his own confession: “….Ujio wa Lowassa chamani nilvyoelewa ulikuwa wa kutuunga mkono siyo yeye sasa awe mgombea wetu wa Urais…”
The bitter fallout of Lowassa’s gatecrashing of Chadema led to many accusations and counter-accusations. Some surmised billions had changed hands to smoothen the Lowassa walk-in, while others cheered his entry and hoped he would win the presidency for them. Dr Slaa, who is our main character in this narrative, is pragmatic in the matter but also self-interested once more. Since he was Chadema’s presidential candidate in 2010, one cannot be faulted in considering the possibility Dr. Slaa had designations Lowassa would have supported his second stab in the presidential race of 2015.
The evidence from his own wife anchored this postulate. His wife was notable for liaising with foreign business contacts in a hope she was a first lady in waiting. When Lowassa ultimately had snatched the Chadema presidential bragging rights, there was no incentive for Dr. Slaa to continue in Chadema. Many of his once political allies went public that he was not the problem of the spat but he was under immense pressure from his young wife to dump Chadema for CCM.
All of sudden Dr. Slaa and Prof. Ibrahim Lipumba decamped from their political outfits and became self appointed campaign managers of CCM presidential candidate Pombe Magufuli. The duo had felt betrayed with the nomination of Edward Lowassa as a presidential flag bearer of the inchoate tent of a loose coalition of opposition political parties: UKAWA. Both Dr. Slaa and professor Lipumba did not see eye to eye before Lowassa joined Chadema. They were rubbing shoulders the wrong way because each one of them was fighting to be the UKAWA presidential candidate.
No sooner than Lowassa was in Ukawa’s driving seat, both Dr Slaa and Professor Lipumba buried their hatchet and became political buddies of convenience. After making a seminal case of why Magufuli should be our president, they fled the country in what was later claimed they feared for their lives. Others surmised that they were paid billions by the CCM government and they had gone to hide their loot. No evidence todate has been availed to support these outrageous allegations.
However, Dr. Slaa’s departure from Chadema to CCM in 2015 trampled his shining credentials as a principled politician. It is a noose that still hangs on his neck even today. While he supported Lowassa’s move to Chadema, he erased the reason he had given that Lowassa was too corrupt to gum down the Presidency on behalf of the loosely United opposition under UKAWA. If hemming in Lowassa membership in UKAWA was an in thing, then no holds should be barred once a member. Lowassa couldn’t be good as a cheerleader and not excellent as a presidential candidate. What I personally read about Dr. Slaa’s rejection of Lowassa was not founded on principles but on self-interest. Lowassa’s presidential stab in 2015 had again echoed Patrick Qorro in 1995, vitiating Dr. Slaa’s political ambition. It was time to move on.
After Magufuli came to power, he rewarded Dr. Slaa with the Swedish ambassador slot, which he served until the untimely demise of President Magufuli. With President Dr. Samia in office, Dr. Slaa had outlived his political stocks with CCM he was shown the exit door on grounds he had busted his tenure of service. Once out of the eating loop, Dr. Slaa was once again opportunistic, he remembered his old political vehicle Chadema. Without notice, he began fine-tuning Chadema’s preferred attacks against CCM. He was forewarned that as a retired ambassador, siding with Chadema would ruin the goodies that accompanied that portfolio. Dr. Slaa said he wouldn’t keep quiet because of that.
With the alacrity reserved only for those who have crossed CCM, Dr. Slaa was axed as a retired ambassador and it is unclear whether he lost terminal benefits as a result or only the ambassadorial V.I.P passport alone. After being relieved of his duties, Dr Slaa sided with Chadema’s lines of political attacks even more. When the Chadema elections came, he aligned himself with the eventual winner, Tundu Lissu, and blamed the then-incumbent, Mbowe, for all the wrongs of Chadema. He never took responsibility for his own part since he was the chief executive officer of Chadema till 2015, when he jumped ship for personal reasons. Mbowe defended himself that how came those he had worked with were the ones dissociating with him at an hour of desperate need. Well, in politics, convenience is often the way forward. They had deemed Mbowe was politically a spent force, so they spurned him.
No sooner than Tundu Lissu had won the Chadema national chairperson slot, dings for the reinstatement of Dr Slaa grew louder and louder. Members of Chadema’s top decision-making body even dunned Tundu Lissu to appoint Dr Slaa to the central committee. Dr. Slaa made a number of concerted steps to receive a baptism of fire with Chadema by going after CCM excesses but had one tongue slip that CCM brutally capitalized. I had written that in my previous articles so there is no need for regurgitation here. Once out of remand after DPP lost interest in Dr Slaa’s tongue slip, Dr Slaa declared he was back in Chadema because the reasons for his departure were no longer there, leaving us wondering whether Mbowe was the real reason and not Lowassa. If so, the ramifications are mind-boggling but beyond the scope of this discourse.
Whatever the reason was or is, there is hardly any love lost with Chadema, with their indefatigable soldier who is considered an asset despite his many ominous flaws. As a rider, Mbowe was fully vindicated with welcoming of Lowassa, records confirm Chadema election performance of 2015 remains historical albeit political punditry still believe had the election been free and fair in 2020, Chadema could have not only produced the president but would have dominated the Augusta House. We have no way of proving this averment beyond reasonable doubt.
It will always be an attractive postulate to mull over but nothing else.
Read more analysis by Rutashubanyuma Nestory
