I happened to have listened to a scathing song called “NO REFORM, NO ELECTION”. In that song the reasons why there will be no election in 2020 were made abundantly clear. I will reproduce the lyrics of the song to nail this point home. This article is inspired by this song. In the past, I advocated for an election commission that incorporated members of political parties in the recruitment of the election commission. This song has helped me to appreciate the futility of that!
This article interrogates a variety of ideas on how an election commission can be formed and win public trust. That it will be above political bias, and the elections will be free, fair, verifiable and trustworthy. This is my take.
Before dabbling into the complex subject of how we can form an independent election commission worthy of its name, not of what we have right now: cynically, just a new brand name can purify INEC! This echoes a parent who claims his daughter is now a tomboy because she is donning a pair of masculine jeans.
Men’s attire somehow repackaged her with some real balls of her own! We know that is a whitewashed decoy. Life isn’t that simple. In fact, it wasn’t designated to be that simple lest we forsake wisdom which we need to overcome the harsh challenges imposed upon us by nature.
The “no reform, no election” song’s lyrics are as follows:
“Yeah….no reform no election.
Mmmhhh…Here we go..
Hatua mbele haina kurudi nyuma.
Haki haiombwi. Nasikia kama kasuku.
Chorus.
No reform no election. X 2
Mchumia tumbo eti mitano tena wanakaririshwa wimbo. Waambieni hao wezi wa kura ni ujenzi wa tanzania siyo kutuburura.
Tunaisaka haki.
Hatutaki tena uchaguzi feki.
Chorus.
No reform no election. X2
Tume feki na wasimamizi feki.
Kura feki na matokeo feki.
Kuradadeki hiyoooo.
Kubandikwa viongozi kwa mtutu hatutaki.
Chorus.
No reform no election. X2
Yatima sababu ya uchaguzi…inatosha.
Wajane sababu ya uchaguzi….inatosha.
Walemavu kwa sababu ya uchaguzi….inatosha.
Chorus.
No reform, no election.
Bila mabadiliko hakuna uchaguzi.
Iwe masika au kiangazi
Patachimbika ili tuweke wazi.
Chorus.
No reform no election. X 2
Bila mabadiliko hakuna uchaguzi.
Iwe masika au kiangazi
Patachimbika ili tuweke wazi.
Chorus.
No reform no election. X 2
Uchaguzi serikali za mitaa wizi mtupu.
Zile 4R uongo mtupu.
Tumebembelezana sana.
Wakati wa lugha tutakayoelewana.
Bila katiba mpya hakuna uchaguzi.
Bila Tume huru hakuna uchaguzi.
Chorus.
No reform no election. X 2
Mmezoea kututeka.
Tutekeni sasa kabla ya uchaguzi.
Mmezoea kutuua.
Tuueni sasa kabla ya uchaguzi.
Mnabambikaga kesi.
Bambikeni sasa kabla ya uchaguzi.
Chorus.
No reform no election. X 2
Hatutaki tena uchaguzi feki.
Tume feki, wasimamizi feki.
Kura feki, matokeo feki.
Kuradadeki
Kung’olewa kutupwa Ununio
Kutekwa hadharani kwa kibao.
Inatosha.
Isasi na Kapurina na wenzao.
Inatosha….inatosha….inatosha.
Chorus. X2
No reform no election.
Bila mabadiliko hakuna uchaguzi.
Iwe masika au kiangazi
Patachimbika ili tuweke wazi.” End of the lyrics.
In summary, the “No reform, no election” dirge decries election rigging and promises action if election reforms are not enacted. Since independence we have never had a situation like this where the general public has lost faith in the whole elections management. The relationship between the election body and politicians from the ruling party, CCM versus the electorate, is deluged with mistrust, brute force and ill will.
The election offences have become too intolerable that only those who are part of the CCM regime have selfish incentives to defend these rampant election injustices leading us into the most basic question, what next?
Whether we like it or not, the peace and tranquility in Tanzania call for meaningful election reforms. Platitudes urging for peace without substance are a wastrel. All election reforms since the re-inception of multiparty democracy in 1992 were insincere and a sellout. Now what kind of election reforms do we need? Here is my own contribution.
Reconstitution of the Election Commission a must!
This area urgently clamour for constitutional reforms. Currently, the president picks the Chairperson who is a High Court judge with considerable experience. What the constitution missed is creating a contradictory posturing in the same constitution. Our constitution embraces the doctrine of the separation of powers between the executive, the judiciary and the parliament. Having active judges chaperoning the management of elections violates this doctrine.
The president also nominates all the INEC commissioners, and removes them at will! The whole INEC serves at the pleasure of the president, and is at her beck and call 24/7! Institutional checks and balances against abuse of public office have never been given a hoot. This is where all tje vicissitudes of the agitation of a new social contract between the governors and rhe governed hails from.
Active judges shouldn’t be part of the recruitment or management of elections. Judges should be our umpires when election disputes arise, but they should span both sides of the government. Another anomaly is having an election commission which is answerable to the ruling party, CCM. All elections after the reintroduction of multiparty democracy in 1992 were statutorily rigged in favour of the ruling party, CCM. The last multiparty elections that were truly free, fair and verifiable in Tanzania were carried out in 1962. It was almost three decades of one of the largest global social experiments gone terribly wrong.
Monoparty elections from 1965 – 1990 had an arguably a modicum of free, fair and verifiable parameters. However, once we had re-switched back to multiparty democracy in 1992, we gradually jettisoned democratic accountability, and dangerously veered to electoral anarchism. We have been inching towards having ritualistic elections divorced from empowering the electorate to choose leaders of their preferences.
This has also been noted by the international community. The US ambassador questioned the margins of CCM victory in the 2020 elections. The international community was at a crossroads with the election commission because the latter had lost all the legitimacy to conduct free, fair and verifiable elections. NEC has been hostile to permitting certain international observers from invigilating the sham of our elections. In fact, NEC is too ashamed to let international observers to witness the madness committed in our fake elections. It is in this Damascus light that the Chadema slogan of “No reforms, No elections” should be understood.
This situation demands an urgent action before peace is sacrificed at the altar of election wanton rigging. Now, since the election commission has been totally discredited there is a need to mull over how a future election commission will look like. In my previous articles, I grappled with the possibility of having the employer of INEC constituted by political parties themselves. I am abandoning those ideas because they harbour an inherent conflict of interest.
If the president cannot legitimately appoint the election commission because of vested interest in the outcomes of elections, so are all political parties. We also saw during the reign of Jecha Salim Jecha who was the Zanzibar Election Commission (ZEC), in 2015 singlehandedly canceled the election after it became vastly clear his own party had lost the Zanzibar elections.
He did that because he was overwhelmed and torn by his CCM loyalty, and the formidable peer pressure that came along with it. The lesson there political parties should have no role to play at any stage of the management of elections. After controversially being declared president of the United of Republic of Tanzania in 2015, president Magufuli openly congratulated Jecha Salim Jecha for cancelling the Zanzibar election verdict. Having this hindsight, any infiltration of members of political parties in the management of elections will corrupt, and rendering them of no use just like what we have right now: elections while everybody knows there will be no elections!
The easiest way to secure members of the employers of INEC is to tap on professional institutions which are largely apolitical. Therefore, I am recommending the following 6 local institutions through their AGMs to elect one member of either gender to join the employers of the INEC. Total number of selection committee of the INEC will be twelve members.
The following professional bodies will provide those members of the INEC selection Committee: Tanzania Association of Accountants (TAA), Institute of Enginerrs Tanzania (IET), Medical Association of Tanzania (MAT) and the Tanganyika Law Society (TLS). There will also be two representatives from the association of university teaching staff elected by the members themselves to represent them in this INEC selection panel.
These five bodies will provide us with 12 members who will elect among themselves who will be their chairperson and their deputy chairperson, and will gazette those results in the government gazette. The INEC selection Committee will have recruitment and disciplinary powers over INEC commissioners. The selection committee will advertise 9 commissioners and will interview them in public. Members of the selection committee and the commissioners of the INEC will serve a maximum one term of non renewable seven years.
The incumbents will receive a ten year current salary as their terminal benefits paid in a lumpsum. The incumbents will not be permitted to be employed in the public service during that period of ten years after retirement to forfeit public perceptions of “quid pro quo”. These steps too will minimize avenues for stratifying incumbency and the cult of personality, not excluding having a compromised INEC.
How INEC will form its independent secretariat and perform its elaborate functions has been abridged from this discourse. It is a subject I will ransack next time around.
