Tanzania's election
Promises, promises
Tanzania is still a backwater compared with its Kenyan neighbour to the
north
Oct 28th 2010 | *BUMBULI*
Makamba (right) networks on the mount
THE parliamentary campaign in Bumbuli, a constituency of 167,000 souls in
the mountainous Lushoto district of Tanzania, is a mixture of ancient and
modern. January Makamba, the candidate of the ruling party, Chama Cha
Mapinduzi (CCM), stands for the modernists. In designer shirt and shoes, he
hikes half way up a mountain to a remote village to solicit votes. The
villagers are demoralised, with no electricity or road and a poor crop. Down
below, a volunteer updates Mr Makamba's Facebook page on a wireless internet
connection.
Within the CCM, Mr Makamba is in a minority. Educated in the United States,
the son of a CCM power broker, he recently quit his job as a speechwriter
for Tanzania's president, Jakaya Kikwete, to run in Bumbuli. He wants
Tanzania to enter the world market. He hobnobs with Western philanthropists.
A copy of "The Rational Optimist", a booster of global capitalism, lies on
the back seat of his campaign truck.
But now he must prove himself on the ground. He showed his steel by ousting
a long-serving CCM parliamentarian. It helps that he comes from the main
town, Lushoto, and lived there as a boy. Up in the village he promises
fertilisers, medicine, more teachers. Electricity? No, too costly.
Bumbuli is among Tanzania's most densely populated constituencies. Most of
its people farm tiny plots too small to be subdivided further. But Mr
Makamba has a plan. He wants to borrow $10m from Wall Street
philanthropists, to be repaid in ten years. The sum, he says, will be
invested in east African treasury bonds and stocks, in the hope of dividends
producing $700,000 a year to invest in Bumbuli.
Some of the cash would help farmers package their fruits and vegetables. Mr
Makamba dreams of refrigerated lorries owned by the community leaving daily
at dawn for Dar es Salaam and Nairobi with "Fresh from Lushoto" produce.
Another project aims to parcel a scenic bit of the constituency and sell it
to a university to set up a campus for 5,000-odd students. Turkish
investors, he claims, are interested.
It is early days, but a youthful tilt at the presidency in 2015 by Mr
Makamba, or someone like-minded, is conceivable. If he took Tanzania's helm,
the country might sail ahead. As it is, its economy has been breezing along
at 6% this year, faster than Kenya's to the north, yet it still feels
slothful by comparison. It has been sliding downwards in the rankings as a
spot for investors. Corruption is rife. Crime is up. Dubious businessmen
enjoy positions of influence in the ruling party.
Though he has failed to fulfil his early promise, President Kikwete will
almost certainly get another five years in the job. Fond of technology and
foreign travel, he is known among his ministers as "Mr Beep" for his habit
of texting them to show he cares. But he has seemed wary of radical reform.
He is sentimental about Tanzania's socialist past. Most foreign aid-givers,
on whom the country still depends for half its budget, are still prepared to
give him the benefit of the doubt.
In his expected second term, Mr Kikwete is likely to promote gas exploration
in the south, expand mining, and try, as ever, to improve services. "Despite
a tripling in the education budget, large majorities of children remain
illiterate and innumerate," says Rakesh Rajani, a Tanzanian who has
researched the performance of primary schools. The country still has far
fewer skilled workers than neighbouring Kenya.
The opposition may do a bit better than before but is fragmented. Moreover,
the army, which thinks it is must protect the ruling CCM, has tried to bully
it-and independent journalists. Two opposition parties stand out. Chadema is
strong among richer smallholders, most of whom belong to the Chagga people
around Mount Kilimanjaro. The Civic United Front is backed by quite a few
Muslims on the coast and in the autonomous island of Zanzibar.
But they are too weak to topple the all-powerful CCM. Mr Kikwete and
Tanzania will gently potter along. If the likes of Mr Makamba managed to
take over the CCM, things might pick up a lot faster. But not, it seems,
just yet.
Source: The Economist