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Warioba is right, but lacks Nyerere`s influence
2007-09-02 10:07:56
By Ani Jozeni
Former Prime Minister Joseph Warioba has lately added his voice to the decade old demand for a rewriting of the constitution, and not introducing - infrequently and laboriously - some changes to its clauses or provisions.
With that sort of input or widening of the arc of demanders of constitutional rewriting, it can be said that the issue has taken a slightly higher representational level in society, for it distantly parallels Mwalimu`s intervention back in 1990 on reintroducing multipartism.
Chroniclers say he first took the matter to the CCM central committee for approval and failed, and opted instead to take it to the people, saying ``it is not a sin`` to discuss such a transition.
There is more than one profound difference between Mwalimu`s intervention on the shift to multipartism, and the former premier`s intervention with regard to the debate on writing the constitution, the first being a symbolic one and the second a more substantive difference.
At the symbolic level, Judge Warioba isn`t as representative of the destiny of the country in a manner comparable to Mwalimu, only a notable voice of concern for human rights and equity in governance, not a repository of strategic decisions or shifts.
He could not for instance have intervened in the Tanganyika motion issue and the party changed its outlook, or for that matter lay down criteria for nomination.
At a more profound level Mwalimu`s intervention, and the way the matter was later decided, focused on the fact that despite the fact that the ruling party as a whole did not wish for a shift to multipartism, it was sufficiently in ideological dispute - some would say disarray - such that something had to give way.
There wasn`t much that its members could agree between themselves, and forming opposition parties would allow the ruling party to lose out some of the steam of contention within it, and also free it from security, state-minded tentacles.
Criticism of CCM top leaders was equivalent to treason for its rank and file, making it indistinguishable from secret security agencies.
So multipartism brought criticism on the door of the ruling party in an unaccustomed way, but also freed its rank and file to talk more freely about leadership, selection of candidates, etc as making big errors in that aspect could bring it into difficulties in elections.
Where such a change hasn`t occurred, for instance in Zanzibar, the CCM wing there is still incapable of conducting free and fair elections, for it can scarcely stand the idea of being defeated - an aspect the Mainland wing hasn`t been forced to contemplate as yet.
The demand for rewriting the constitution has in mind making such a challenge a reality, chiefly by adopting proportional representation for most of Parliament.
Nothing of that sort can be suggested to CCM in relation to the current dispute, as the ruling party gains nothing in rewriting the constitution, by which the intention is adopting a proportional method of parliamentary representation.
The other aspect is an expectation that with that kind of method, cabinet positions would also be shared out on the basis of such representation, that is, more or less imposing a government of national unity on a representative basis as different from token inclusion.
The prospect for token inclusion of the Mainland opposition arises because of the likelihood of forming a government of national unity in Zanzibar, needing a gesture of goodwill on this side too.
The cry about a new constitution is chiefly a demand for equity, namely that the domination by the ruling party is so stifling that something needs to be changed at the level of the constitution for reality to change.
The idea that this can be done by amending various clauses - as the main body of the constitution, setting out arms of government and promulgating basic constitutional freedoms - aren`t likely to be altered.
Changing the basis of representation from constituencies to proportional representation looks unattainable for Tanzanians are not socially or politically fused enough for elections to focus on the same issues.
Proportional representation presumes that voters are in the main casting ballots for parties, where all election studies show that they are essentially voting for given individuals.
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