Kikwete tipped for re-election

Dar es Salaam - East Africa's largest country prepared for its fourth multi-party polls on Sunday, with President Jakaya Kikwete expected to keep his job despite feistier-than-usual opposition.

Voters will also choose leaders on Tanzania's semi-autonomous Zanzibar island under a new power-sharing system aimed at ending perennial election violence.

Two opinion polls have given Kikwete, 60, a wide margin over his six opponents as he seeks a second and final term in office.

Opposition to his ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM - Revolution Party) is at its strongest since the resumption of multiparty politics in 1992 and Kikwete is expected to win with a lower margin than his 80 percent landslide in 2005.

Kikwete, a former foreign minister, has promised to reduce poverty, improve health, education and transport, but his opponents criticised the new pledges, saying poverty is still high despite CCM's rule since 1961 independence.

Tanzania is one of the world's least developed countries, with an economy reliant on non-industrialised agriculture that employs nearly 80 percent of the workforce.

Other economic sectors include mining, construction, manufacturing and tourism Ä for which it boasts the expansive Serengeti park and Kilimanjaro, Africa's tallest mountain, as well as the idyllic Zanzibar archipelago.

The ruling party remained confident it would win the elections, in which some 19 million voters will also elect lawmakers and local leaders.

“We are satisfied with the trend of our campaigns so far,” said Abdulrahman Kinana, CCM's election committee chairman.

“We are going to emerge with a big victory in the presidential, parliamentary and councillors' polls,” he told reporters earlier this month.

One of Kikwete's main opponents is three-time presidential loser Ibrahim Lipumba of the Civic United Front (CUF).

A former University of Dar es Salaam economics professor, Lipumba lost twice to Kikwete's predecessor Benjamin Mkapa in 1995 and 2000 and to Kikwete himself in 2005, and opinion polls have placed him third.

First-time presidential candidate and veteran lawmaker Wilbrod Slaa is Kikwete's closest challenger, but registered a paltry 10

percent in opinion polls released earlier this month.

On the Zanzibar archipelago, a top tourist destination but politically volatile, some 400 000 voters are also called to cast their ballots on Sunday.

CCM's Ali Mohamed Shein, 62, and CUF's 67-year-old Seif Sharif Hamad are the top candidates for Zanzibar's presidency. The two also backed a July referendum to entrench a power-sharing government in the constitution.

Under the new accord, the winning pary takes the presidency while the runners-up are handed the position of vice-president.

Despite a peaceful campaigns, the CUF has voiced concern about the Zanzibar Electoral Commision's (ZEC) transparency.

“We are still concerned about transparency. ZEC has released a copy of voter registers with some irregularities,” the party's poll director Juma Sanani said.

“There are about 10 000 uncollected voters cards which were supposed to be stored by ZEC, but the cards are now in the wrong hands and may be used for double voting.”

Geographically, Zanzibar archipelago comprises three isles, but the third, Mafia, falls under the mainland administratively.

Zanzibar formed a union government in 1964 with mainland Tanganyika, as it was then known, to establish the United Republic of Tanzania.

The CCM has been at the helm since 1977 after replacing a party that ruled the country since independence from Britain in 1961. -

AFP

VOICES II PROJECT SUPPORTS SWAHILI FASHION WEEK 2010

Press conference at RSVP Much More where Co-founder of MTOKO designs discusses with a journalist about their designs for Malaria Hikubaliki being shown at Swahili Fashion Week 2010..


Anna McCartney-Melstad (L), three designers showacasing ideas from Malaria Haikubaliki campaign(Middle) and Fauziyat Abood, during the press conference at RSVP Much More, Dar es Salaam

African, Arab partnership must overcome history of slavery (Feature)

By Anaclet Rwegayura, PANA Correspondent Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (PANA) - When Libyan leader Mouammar Kadhafi recently apologised on behalf of Arab countries that were involved in the African slave trade, some observers regarded his remarks as whimsical, especially because few are wil ling to broach new ideas about the denigration of human dignity engendered by the subjection of Africans to the evils of slave trade.

Many in Africa learnt about slavery as part of history lessons at school, while many have also seen or travelled along the trail of sites, towns, road markers a n d seaports retracing the Arab Slave Trade in Tanzania and in the rest of East Africa. Beyon d that, not much has happened.

According to available studies, more than five million Africans were captured, e nslaved, and shipped to the Middle East, India, Asia, and also to the West.

Today's African population abhors slavery as much as their ancestors did and, as it appears, many will want more than an apology. Analysts have however commende d the Libyan leader for his courage in not only talking openly about the issue but als o apologising on behalf of the Arab countries that were involved in slave trade.

''Though coming belatedly, brother Kadhafi's apology is commendable,'' said Edis on Maige, a retired Tanzanian teacher. ''No Arab leader had shown such courage a n d openness to admit the atrocities that their forefathers committed against the Af rican race.

''Despite the passage of time, hidden grudges are still there in our societies a gainst foreigners who perpetuated slave labour. Accounts of people who had suffe r ed under Arab slavery have been handed down from generation to generation. This explains why local people of Arab descent are sometimes detested, especially when they seek in fluential positions,'' Maige said.

As an outcome of entrenched slavery, Arabs became major planters of coconuts, cloves and other spices in Zanzibar and along East African coastal areas in the 1800s. The crops have since then been the economic mainstay of the islands, though their production no longer booms as they used to be until the 1970s.

Official abolition of slavery in the isles in 1897 did not make a big difference for the majority of the population. The abolition decree by the colonial rulers

and the measures taken to implement it, as it turned out, were designed to bolster Arab slave own ers, to tie ex-slaves to the plantations through contracts and to discourage the independence of workers.

For several years, it became apparent that the number of slaves who were being f reed remained modest and that ex-slaves were restricted from accessing free labour market.

According to records, the end of the slave trade in coastal East Africa, including Zanzibar, came through the gradual destruction of the complex networks that g a thered and distributed slaves.

Zanzibar's clove plantations had survived to enrich Arabs because of slave labour, while slavery itself became an integrated social system under which Africans w ere controlled as personal property.

The changing political landscape of East Africa greatly contributed to the freed om of slaves and reduced their economic dependence on Arab landowners. The expan s ion of British imperial activity increased the demand for caravan porters and Zanzibar became a centre of recruitment.

With Mombasa port in Kenya becoming a staging area for caravans to Uganda and co nstruction of the railway linking the two countries, new demand for workers were
created.

Therefore, slave owners in Zanzibar witnessed a great exodus as slaves escaped t o freedom and new economic opportunities in railway camps.

Although the work in those camps was menial and often dangerous, a slave who deserted his master in the late 1890s could survive in dignity. Wages on the rail road were above the going rate for hired labour on the coast, where economic options for ex-slaves were narrower.

They had no difficulty with the concept of wage labour, but they wanted to contr ol the condition under which they worked, to make cash earnings part of their ec o nomic lives rather than to subordinate themselves to plantation labour. The fertile soils of Zanzibar made it possible for a small plot to produce enough crops for a family ' s subsistence and a surplus for sale.

With a cash income, they could buy all provisions for which they had in the past relied on their owner.

Arab landowners eventually failed to keep ex-slaves as personal dependents tied to their estates and, as the wind of freedom swept across sub-Saharan Africa, th e role of the Arab sultanate and the colonial state in Zanzibar came into question.

By 12 January 1964, the Arab predominance and their ruling structure were topple d by a revolution that gave birth to the present Zanzibar, where all citizens enjoy the social and economic benefits of the state.

Despite the history of slavery involving Arabs, however, the relationship betwee n Africa and the Arab world is not so much represented by the fate of slavery victims.

According to Maige, it is heartening to see African and Arab leaders coming together to put a new life in the relationship of their worlds.

''The basis of our relationship had to change fundamentally. We no longer accept subordination in whatever joint ventures the two sides may agree to undertake,' ' he said.

But Maige warned that African politicians should not use slave trade as an excus e for Africa's underdevelopment.

''Slave trade did not mean the demise of the African race. Renewed partnership w ith the Arab nations should not be a source of disputes with Africa, but it shou l d enable populations on both sides to advance to better standards of living beca u se we all need each other,'' he added.

Commonwealth to Deploy Election Observers

A Commonwealth Observer Group (COG) will be present during Tanzania's General Elections due to be held on 31 October 2010. The COG will be led by former New Zealand Attorney-General, Rt Hon Paul East QC.

The Group was constituted by Commonwealth Secretary-General, Kamalesh Sharma, at the invitation of the National Electoral Commission of Tanzania.

"The Commonwealth has a history of engagement with Tanzania, and we are pleased to observe these important elections," the Secretary-General said. He went on, "We very much hope that they will further strengthen the democratic process and advance development in the country."

The Group's mandate is to observe the preparations for the election, the polling, the counting and the results process, and the overall electoral environment. The team will be there to assess the conduct of the process as a whole and, where appropriate, make recommendations for the future strengthening of the electoral framework in Tanzania, including the process in Zanzibar.

The Group will act impartially and independently, and will conduct itself according to the standards expressed in the International Declaration of Principles for Election Observation, to which the Commonwealth is a signatory.

The Group's report will be submitted to the Commonwealth Secretary-General, who will in turn send it to the Government of Tanzania as well as to the authorities in Zanzibar, the National Electoral Commission, the Zanzibar Electoral Commission and political parties, and eventually to all Commonwealth Governments.

The Commonwealth Observer Group is expected to comprise 15 experienced persons, including the Chair. The team will arrive in Tanzania on 24 October 2010, and stay until 7 November 2010.

Commonwealth Observer Group - Tanzania 2010

Chair: Rt Hon Mr Paul East, QC, Former Attorney-General, New Zealand

Mrs Judy Hopwood MP, Member of Parliament, Australia

Ms Juliette Maughan, Youth Representative, Barbados

Mr Pierre Paul Martin, Elections Expert, Canada

Hon Omar Jallow, Politician, Gambia

Mrs Pauline Dadzawa, Election Commissioner, Ghana

Dr Rupert Roopnaraine, Politician, Guyana

Mr Akshay Rout, Director General, Election Commission, India

Ms Jane Godia, Media/Gender Expert, Kenya

Ms Cheryl Dorall, Media Consultant, Malaysia

Sheikh (Dr) Abdul Karimo, Co-ordinator, Elections Obsevatory, Mozambique

Mr Charles Munyaneza, Executive Secretary, National Election Commission, Rwanda

Mr Pesi Fonua, Publisher/Editor, Tonga

Hon Irene Ovonji-Odida, Former Member of the East African Legislative Assembly, Uganda

Mr Frank Martin, Former Diplomat, United Kingdom


AllAfrica.com