Elections were held in Tanzania on 29 October 2000. The ruling party CCM (Party of the Revolution) predictably won on the mainland, but faced a fierce challenge on the islands of Zanzibar from the CUF (Civic United Front). The elections on Zanzibar were, according to observers, not free and fair. This has led a sporadic violence and a boycott of the legislature by the CUF. This article, for Review of African Political Economy, seeks to explain why the current political stalemate has come about, and considers the prospects for political progress as a result of the 2001 agreement between CCM and CUF. It argues that the CCM government on the islands is becoming increasingly authoritarian.
CCM narrowly won the first multiparty presidential and legislative elections in Zanzibar in 1995. The CUF and western donors claimed the Zanzibar Electoral Commission (ZEC) had rigged the presidential vote. In protest, CUF boycotted the legislature. In 1999 a Commonwealth brokered agreement aimed at ending the political deadlock was signed by both CCM and CUF. However, CCM did not implement its obligations, and this raised tensions ahead of the next elections.
In 2000 CCM won both the presidency and the legislature, but again observers stated that the vote was neither free nor fair. On 27 January 2001 CUF held demonstrations that were brutally suppressed by the police. Between 30 and 70 people were killed, over 600 were wounded, and thousands of Zanzibaris fled to the mainland.
The political crisis in Zanzibar stems from the perceived threat that multiparty democracy poses both to the coalition that came into power after the 1964 Zanzibar revolution, and to the union government.
- The union government has refused to countenance any reform of the union between the mainland and the islands, a union the majority of Zanzibaris see as a threat to their islands’ autonomy.
- Specifically, the crisis has its origins in CCM’s lamentable economic performance since 1964 and its pursuance of ‘revolutionary’ politics long into independent Zanzibar’s political history.
- These factors have alienated a large segment of Zanzibari society from the leaders of the 1964 revolutionary coalition, especially on the impoverished island of Pemba.
- Throughout the 1970s and onwards, a growing number of Zanzibaris began to view the 1964 Union with Tanzania mainland as an instrument to preserve the economic status quo by keeping the Isles politically prostrate.
The criticism that the CCM government received from the international community after the January 2001 shootings may have prompted the political settlement between CCM and CUF in October 2001.
- The agreement included reform of the ZEC, the introduction of a permanent register of eligible voters, a review of the existing constitution and electoral laws, the re-training and re-organising of the security services, fair coverage for both parties in the publicly-owned media, and payment of compensation to those affected by the January 2001 shootings
- What made the agreement different from that brokered in 1999 was the detailed implementation programme, with time limits on each item.
- The agreement represented a historic opportunity to achieve political stability through greater power sharing underpinned by more neutral and independent media and government organs.
