Politics for Dummies

Wildlife Ecology down, two exams to go. In light of my next exam being Environmental Policy & Socioeconomics (and my dire need for procrastination), I decided to give you a little insight to the political controversy going on in Tanzania right now. We are lucky enough to be living here in Rhotia during one of the most monumental presidential campaigns/elections. Although there are countless parties involved (some with more precedence than others), the main three that we’ve been surrounded by are CCM (has been the single most influential party for as long as many staff members can remember), Chadema, and CUF. The current president of the “United Republic of Tanzania” is Kikwete (of the CCM party). Solely based off of my impressions, Chadema seems like the “young, new, and exciting party” while CUF appears to be the party that continually runs, and just can’t seem to leave a strong enough impact on the citizens to win. It’s estimated that 17 million voters have already registered for the impending October 31 election (trick-or-treating will not be an option this Halloween…many articles I have read are predicting much controversy & dissatisfaction…luckily we will have left for Kenya three days prior to the election). I am going to give you a brief background about each party. Note: I’ve read many articles, some of which may have had some rhetorical bias in the writing…I am simply presenting my findings…I feel like I am not yet knowledgeable enough to have my own personal opinion.

SO, shall we? Kikwete (CCM) is running for his second term. In the 2005 election, he won by a landslide. CCM has been the only ruling part for more than forty years now. This time around, CCM is striving for a more open and democratic environment here in TZ. It’s said that they base their foundation off of socialist ideas. Chadema’s Dr. Slaa is running against Kikwete. Their motto is “Hatudanganyiki” which translates to “We will not be cheated.” After reading a few articles about their beliefs and values, it seems they think that much corruption exists within the Tanzanian government (e.g. misuse of funds). Dr. Slaa promises to restore accountability, integrity, and trust within the government. He also assures that he will not tolerate misuse of natural resources [ 🙂 ].  Apparently (again I’m not sure how biased this article was) 11 trillion shillings have been “lost” since the election of 2005. The finding that I found most compelling was that Dr. Slaa is planning to trim his salary in order for free education to exist, from grade one to the university level. I think this is huge. After getting to know a ton of kids around here, I’ve found that it’s totally not that they lack motivation to learn, they lack opportunity… One Tanzanian woman I met said that unfortunately her husband used a lot (I think all) of their earned money for alcohol…to the point that her two kids couldn’t attend secondary school anymore… My policy teacher says that essentially Chadema is all about improving human rights. CUF’s presidential candidate is Lipumba. He has run 3 previous times and lost. If he wins, he states that he will be open to the idea of forming an alliance with other candidates that have lost because he believes if they work together, they could achieve a lot in many different areas. Lipumba is a strong advocate of human rights and has also been a policy professor around the Tanzania area for many years.

Obviously there’s much more to say about each party but I wanted to fill you in on the essentials. When walking into town you can just feel the excitement. The colors of each party are worn by almost every Tanzanian. The symbol for the Chadema party is a peace sign…a few guys gave my two girlfriends and me the peace sign when we were out shopping…naively we gave it back…and then received a few death glares from CCM advocates (whose symbol is the thumbs up)… we now walk around with a peace sign in our right hand and a thumbs up in our left. As already mentioned, when Kikwete won the previous election, he won by a complete landslide. Although many think he will win again, everyone knows it won’t be by much if he does…almost reminds me of our most recent election…we will see!

I have to get back to studying though. Last exam is tomorrow morning and then we get to go to the biggest market of the year in Karatu! I guess people come from all over Africa. Email me (hcanepa10@gmail.com everything is so cheap so don’t even worry…plus I’d be supporting the community) if you want me to pick you up anything [bracelets, jerseys, paintings, rings, Maasai jewelry, tapestries]. Then we leave for our 4-day Serengeti expedition on Saturday morning! I’ll try and post before I leave, letting you in on the cool wildebeest research we will be doing there…we get to go on night drives (aka when many large carnivores hunt)! Okay, longest post ever sorry, can you tell I don’t want to study? Wish me luck!

☮Hannah

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 6th, 2010 at 6:03 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

One Response to “Politics for Dummies”

1. Ian Christopher Canepa says:

   October 6, 2010 at 8:47 pm

   Dont forget the lion cub!!