bY KARL LYIMO
PERMIT me, o’esteemed reader, to confess that I’ve borrowed (perhaps ‘stolen’ is more accurate!) the headline to this LUCUBRATION from a historic happenstance.
It was on a date like today’s 215 years ago – February17, 1801 – that Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) was ‘elected’ the third American President (1801-09) by the US House of Representatives.
In the event, Aaron Burr (1756-1836) became the third US Vice-President (1801-05)! The intriguing bit here’s that both gentlemen had vied for the Presidency in the 1800 election – and received equal votes! Hence the tie-break to resolve the impasse! I was reminded of that electoral boil which needed lancing (Tanzania President John Pombe Magufuli pardon!) by ongoing developments in Zanzibar following the October 25 general elections last year.
By way of a background: the United Republic of Tanzania (known simply as ‘Tanzania’) statutorily reverted to multiparty politics in 1992.
The first general elections under the system – which had been decreed out of fashion in 1965 by the Mwalimu Julius Nyerere Presidency (1962-85) – drew contestants for ‘electoral office’ from nearly a score of political parties in ‘Mainland-Tanzania ’ and ‘Tanzania-Zanzibar!’
The two parts of the Union (Mainland-Tanzania and Tanzania-Zanzibar: see Article 152 of the Union Constitution) – are ‘geographically separated’ by the 20+ miles-wide Zanzibar Channel in the vast Indian Ocean.
The two also labour under a myriad ‘differences’ to one degree or another. Principally, the differences are on issues outside the ambit of what are designated ‘Union Matters’ in the 1977 Union Constitution as amended from time to time. What with one thing leading to another, Union Matters grew in number from nine to 22 today!
Interestingly enough, among the Union Matters are the Union Constitution and Government; Defence & Security; Immigration and Citizenship; Higher Education, Research, Statistics and Meteorology; Appellate Court; the ‘Registration of Political Parties and other Matters Related to Political Parties’ (sic)... [Incidentally, if Political Parties are a Union Matter, why are electoral processes – including voting and results thereof – NOT?]. Anyway, also most intriguing is that some truly-crucial issues are NOT ‘Union Matters’ either!
For instance, Zanzibar does indeed have its own Constitution, President, Government (The Revolutionary Council), ‘Parliament’ (House of Representatives) – and a Court System up to the High Court level. Zanzibar also has its own Court of Arms, Flag, Anthem – and a myriad other dressings which are, generally-speaking, the peculiarities of a nation-state!
In due course of time and events, it’s been amply demonstrated that the Union hasn’t been without troubling incidents here, there and over there! Admittedly, it’s in ways more than one been an exemplary Union on Planet Earth in modern times this side of Heaven since it was formally ‘created by Mortal Man’ on April 26, 1964: all of 52 years ago!
But, in all fairness – and without an iota of prejudice – it must also be said that most of the gremlins have been at work in areas which relate to the Isles part of the Union than in Mainland-Tanzania. Perhaps the most glaring examples of the gremlins at work in the Spice Islands are to be found in the quinquennial multiparty elections which started with the 1995 polls!
The results of each and every one of the four elections since then have been highly-disputed by the two major political parties in the Isles: the veteran ruling Party of the Revolution (Chama cha Mapinduzi: CCM) and its political nemesis, the Civic United Front (CUF).
In fact, the Zanzibar electoral results in the Year-2000 were tragically controversial, ending in the deaths of a score or so of demonstrators in the Isles in January 2001 – and dozens of Zanzibari/Tanzanian exiles to Kenya and further afield!
Then, seemingly, the Sisters of Fate intervened in positive terms and – what with one thing leading to another – Zanzibar refreshingly entered a new governance phase following the 2010 elections.
This was in the form of a Govt. of National Unity (GNU) which brought together in close political embrace the two antagonistic sides – with CCM’s Dr Ali Mohammed Shein President, and CUF’s Maalim Seif Shariff Hamad First Vice-President!
It was hunky-dory – what with the Zanzibar governance machinery ticking like Swiss clockwork – and that thitherto elusive coalition was on the way to entrenching a Rainbow Nation... Until the 2015 elections, when the Sisters of Fate turned ghoulishly nasty – and threw a spanner in the works!
As it is – from the security, stability and foreign-aid points of view – we’re ‘living from hand-to-mouth,’ so to speak, not knowing what’ll happen tomorrow! Oh... Looking back to Feb. 17, 1801, the similarity between the Jefferson/Burr and Shein/Seif impasse is uncannily enigmatic...
For instance: which one of the latter two is Tanzania’s erudite ‘Jefferson’ – and is, therefore, the ‘next’ Zanzibar President? Which one, indeed? I ask you...
Cheers!
/Daily News.
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