US embassy cable - 05DARESSALAAM908

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 DAR ES SALAAM 000908 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR AF/E AND INR/AA 
 
E.O. 12958: 5/9/15 
TAGS: PGOV, TZ 
SUBJECT: The CCM Nominates a President:  an Incomplete 
Democratic Transition 
 
 
Classified by Pol-Econ Chief Judy Buelow for reason 
1.4(b) 
 
REF: A) Dar es Salaam 888, B) Dar es Salaam 855, 
C) Dar es Salaam 832, D) Dar es Salaam 732 and 
previous 
 
1. (C) Summary: It's only the second week of May, but 
the October Presidential election has already been 
decided, now that the ruling CCM party has selected 
Jakaye Kikwete as its nominee.  Over a decade after 
the introduction of multiparty democracy in Tanzania, 
the CCM is still a juggernaut that easily overwhelms a 
fragile and fragmented opposition.  Far from taking 
CCM predominance for granted, the party loyalists who 
gathered in Dodoma revealed their determination to 
maintain party unity, and to safeguard against any 
future encroachments by the opposition.  The CCM's 
week-long nomination extravaganza also revealed a 
persistent nostalgia for the old single party state, 
and a convenient confusion between the roles of the 
government and the party.  The CCM still relies on 
international solidarity from other current (or 
recovering) single-party states, especially Zimbabwe. 
Tanzania installed the mechanism of competitive 
democratic elections years ago, but it will be many 
years more before fully democratic practices take root 
and flourish.  End Summary. 
 
--------------------------------------------- -- 
Debate and Reconciliation within the CCM Family 
--------------------------------------------- -- 
 
2. (U) Foreign Minister Kikwete's nomination to the 
Presidency was not exactly a surprise, but CCM 
watchers had envisioned many scenarios which could 
have produced a different nominee.  Kikwete was always 
the front runner, with many allies among the top 
echelons of the party.  Nonetheless, many other party 
luminaries, possibly including President Mkapa 
himself, strongly opposed Kikwete and were prepared to 
block his candidacy.  Many of the Embassy's government 
contacts quietly favored Salim Salim, an intellectual 
with long previous service as Foreign Minister and the 
OAU Secretary General.  Prime Minister Sumaye clearly 
believed that he had a chance to prevail, despite his 
lackluster campaign and rumored personal corruption; 
he was noticeably embittered after he was knocked out 
in the early rounds of the CCM nomination process.  A 
deadlock was not out of the question; prior to the CCM 
nomination event in Dodoma, the rumor mill focused on 
plausible dark horse candidates who might step into 
the breech. 
 
3. (SBU) A party insider described late nights and 
acrimony during the first two rounds of the nomination 
process, which narrowed the original field of eleven 
declared candidates down to five, and then three. 
These two rounds were conducted in private, first in 
the Central Committee, and then in the National 
Executive Committee (NEC).  The NEC membership 
consists of some 200 individuals, including all of the 
36 members of the Central Committee.  President Mkapa 
is also the Chairman of the CCM, and in this capacity, 
he chairs both of these entities and the Party 
Congress.  In addition to holding top party posts, the 
members of the NEC and the Central Committee are 
Ministers, Members of Parliament, and other top 
government officials.  These individuals are the de 
facto leaders of both the CCM party and the 
Government. 
 
4. (U) The CCM Party Congress, technically the highest 
organ of the CCM, then convened to elect the nominee 
from the three finalists.  The Party Congress convenes 
once every five years for its regular sessions, with 
additional extraordinary sessions to nominate CCM 
candidates for electoral office.  The Party Congress 
includes the members of the Central Committee and the 
NEC, with the balance of its nearly 1800 members 
consisting of mid-level CCM functionaries from all 
over the country.  When the Party Congress finally 
voted, it was a model of transparency.  Each member 
marked a ballot in secret, and cast it in one of 
several ballot boxes that appeared to have been 
borrowed from the National Electoral Commission.  In 
the Congress, Kikwete won the party's nomination 
overwhelmingly, on the first ballot. 
 
5. (SBU) For all the procedural correctness of the 
vote, it is probably safe to assume that most 
delegates to the CCM Party Congress had been strongly 
influenced by corridor discussions with the NEC and 
Central Committee members in their midst.  The Party 
Congress was above all a ceremonial event, and an 
opportunity to reaffirm CCM ideals.  Diplomats, 
representatives of foreign "sister parties," and the 
press all turned out in force to the Party's massive, 
if under-utilized, headquarters building on a Dodoma 
hilltop.  Delegates, like convention-goers everywhere, 
wanted to have a good time.  Virtually everybody wore 
an emerald green shirt and a bright yellow cap, and 
stood ready to wave miniature CCM flags and shout 
party slogans on command, usually to the beat of 
traditional music.  The vote to amend the CCM party 
constitution provided an interesting contrast to the 
vote for the nominee.  The whole Congress adopted, by 
noisy acclaim and with nary a dissenting voice, a 
series of amendments that further increased the NEC's 
power in the party and in the government itself. 
 
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The Voters Watch Hopefully from the Outside 
------------------------------------------- 
 
6. (U) While there are no reliable national opinion 
polls, it is a safe bet that the Congress' choice of 
Kikwete is popular with the man in the street. 
Charismatic and personable, Kikwete gained visibility 
during his 1995 candidacy for the presidency.  In that 
contest Kikwete had also been one of the three 
finalists, and he had received more votes than any 
other candidate in the first round of voting.  In the 
end, however, he lost out to compromise candidate 
Mkapa, after the 1995 Party Congress deadlocked.  Over 
the years, many of our Tanzanian interlocutors have 
expressed disappointment with that outcome and hope 
that Kikwete would eventually prevail. 
 
------------------------------------ 
Party Unity above All Considerations 
------------------------------------ 
 
7. (C) For now, however, it's the CCM party 
leadership, and not the man in the street, who really 
elects Tanzania's President.  The three finalists' 
speeches before the Congress revealed an electoral 
campaign directed exclusively to the 1,800 people who 
represent the top party organs.  The speeches 
contained almost no appeals to the wider national 
electorate:  no promises of a chicken in every pot, 
few sentimental references to the Tanzanian family, 
and very little reference to policy at all, beyond a 
generalized commitment to eradicate poverty.  Each 
finalist emphasized his personal qualifications, in 
keeping with the guidelines for selecting presidential 
candidates that the party had established earlier in 
the electoral cycle.  The finalists all emphasized 
their educational achievements, their loyalty and long 
service in the government and the party (making little 
distinction between the two), and their dedication to 
maintaining the Union between mainland Tanganyika and 
Zanzibar. 
 
8. (SBU) National Unity was a theme common to all 
speakers who addressed the Party Congress, including 
the three finalists, President Mkapa, and a comedian 
who mimicked the mannerisms and the aphorisms of the 
late President Nyerere.  The speakers all portrayed 
the CCM as the guardian of national unity, defending 
Tanzania from the dissolution of the union with 
Zanzibar, and from all manner of tribalism, 
regionalism or ideological dissention.  Several called 
for the CCM to stand firm against any growth of the 
opposition, implying that political opposition 
threatened Tanzania's enviable peace and stability. 
In this, the opinions and attitudes expressed in the 
Congress probably do not differ much from those of the 
average mainland Tanzanian. 
 
-------------------------------------- 
Bowing to the Inevitability of Kikwete 
-------------------------------------- 
 
9. (C) Kikwete's nomination reflected the unspoken 
recognition that the CCM could not lose this election 
to any of Tanzania's struggling opposition parties, 
but the CCM could be defeated someday by an internal 
schism.  As the nomination process worked its way 
through the party mechanism, it became evident that 
the CCM would make every effort to safeguard party 
unity in 2005, in order to preserve CCM predominance 
over the long term.  Speaking in his capacity as CCM 
Party Chairman, Mkapa called for a candidate who was 
"electable," warning that that if the CCM's choice of 
candidate disappointed the people, they would drift to 
the opposition.  Mkapa also urged the CCM to build 
support among Tanzania's young people.  Kikwete is 
believed to have his strongest base of support among 
the party's youth wing, so many observers interpreted 
this exhortation as a signal that Mkapa was throwing 
his support to Kikwete's candidacy, even if he had 
opposed it before.  All of the CCM's losing candidates 
conceded to Kikwete, and most did so graciously. 
 
10. (C) It appears that most CCM party luminaries 
decided that, whatever their personal preferences, 
Kikwete was simply too strong to pass over or ignore. 
Because of his base of fervent supporters in the party 
and in the public, Kikwete may be one of the few CCM 
leaders with the capacity to mount a plausible 
electoral campaign outside of the party structure. 
The CCM opted against disappointing Kikwete again in 
2005, forestalling the risk that he could leave the 
CCM and take his supporters with him. 
 
------------------- 
The Zanzibar factor 
------------------- 
 
11. (C) Troublesome little Zanzibar is the one big 
exception to the rule of CCM predominance.  Zanzibar 
is semi-autonomous, electing its own President and 
House of Representatives.  If the October elections on 
Zanzibar are free and fair, Zanzibaris are quite 
likely to elect the opposition CUF party to head their 
government.  In the Congress, numerous CCM speakers 
implied that opposition gains threatened Tanzania's 
peace, stability, and continuation of the Union 
itself. 
 
12. (C) Behind the scenes, the party leaders in the 
NEC and the Central Committee apparently went all out 
to shore up the CCM's faltering presence on Zanzibar. 
Just two days before the Party Congress convened, 
intense pressure from these officials persuaded 
Mohamed Gharib Bilal to relinquish his candidacy for 
the Zanzibari Presidency.  Consequently, the Party 
Congress never voted on its candidate for the Zanzibar 
Presidency, and the incumbent President Karume never 
had to face an embarrassing challenge from within his 
own party.  Zanzibaris in the CCM were presumably 
disappointed by the nominee to the National 
presidency.  They might have expected the party would 
nominate one of their own, such as Pemba Island native 
Salim Salim.  In nominating mainlander Kikwete, 
however, the CCM broke with the incipient tradition of 
alternating Zanzibaris with mainlanders in the top 
office.  Outside observers can only speculate about 
what else the CCM inner circle might have promised to 
the party's hard-pressed Zanzibar contingent.  The 
most burning question is one that has occupied Western 
diplomats and opposition CUF politicians for months: 
would the CCM again turn a blind eye if its Zanzibar 
contingent thought it needed to cheat to win elections 
in the Isles? 
 
------------------------------------ 
Reaffirming International Solidarity 
------------------------------------ 
 
13. (C) Of the many foreign guests at the CCM Party 
Congress, the most honored were the representatives of 
various national "sister" parties.  Some of these 
represented the Communist Parties of single party 
states; many others represented former sole parties 
that still dominate the emerging multiparty system in 
their countries.  The Chinese and Cuban Communist 
Parties sent representatives; so did South Africa's 
ANC, Mozambique's FRELIMO, Angola's MPLA, and the 
Congo's PPRD.  The unchallenged queen of the gathering 
was Zimbabwean Ambassador Chipo Zindoga, representing 
ZANU-PF.  Recognized from the podium and escorted 
conspicuously by her South African counterpart, Chipo 
was clearly well-known and popular with the CCM rank 
and file at the Congress. 
14. (C) A group of Western diplomats attending the 
Congress recalled that Dar es Salaam had once been a 
haven for revolutionaries from throughout southern 
Africa.  Political leaders from Tanzania, Uganda, 
Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe not only have an 
ideological affinity; many of them also have a 
personal relationship that dates to the Dar es Salaam 
of the 1970s and 1980s.  Some of the diplomats 
commented on the sobering implications of this 
regional solidarity, especially among the SADC 
countries.  They considered Tanzania's recent and very 
public support of Zimbabwe to be a signal that the 
region's sister parties intend to close ranks in 
defense of an "African" version of democracy, and to 
overlook any undemocratic techniques these sister 
parties might use to perpetuate their power. 
 
15. (C) Comment:  The CCM's week-long nomination 
extravaganza begs the question:  just how democratic 
is Tanzania?  Clearly, Tanzania is more democratic 
than it was in 1970s, when founding father President 
Nyerere consolidated single party rule and a state- 
directed economy.  The 1992 introduction of a multi- 
party system opened a space for political competition. 
Democratic institutions such as the National Electoral 
Commission have built their technical expertise and 
gained experience in conducting elections.  The public 
has had time to get used to the idea that, just maybe, 
political competition is natural, that policy debate 
doesn't lead inevitably to tribal conflict and 
instability, and that an opposition government on 
Zanzibar won't necessarily break up the Tanzania 
Union.  Someday, perhaps years hence, a strong 
opposition party will emerge on the mainland, or the 
CCM will split, and the voters will be presented with 
a real electoral choice.  In the meantime, the 
Tanzanians have the chance to develop the political 
maturity and the strong democratic institutions that 
may enable them to complete their transition to 
democracy peacefully.  For now, however, the CCM party 
has chosen its candidate, and the 2005 presidential 
election is all over with except for the voting. End 
Comment. 
 
16. (U) Please see Embassy Dar es Salaam's SIPRNet 
site for a complete update and background on the 
Tanzanian elections. 
 
OWEN