Military

DATE=10/31/00

TYPE=BACKGROUND REPORT

NUMBER=5-47288

TITLE=ZANZIBAR / ELECTION

BYLINE=SCOTT STEARNS

DATELINE=ZANZIBAR

CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

INTRO: Tanzania is facing a political crisis. Election observers on the island of Zanzibar say Sunday's vote there should be repeated. But the government says it is only going to re-run the vote in two districts, something opposition candidates say is not acceptable. For more than 30 years, Tanzanians were able to turn to the country's founding father for guidance on this kind of crisis. V-O-A's Scott Stearns reports on how his death has affected Tanzanian politics.

TEXT:

/// OPENS WITH FUNERAL BRASS, ESTABLISH AND FADE UNDER TEXT ///

It has been a year since Tanzanians laid to rest their first president, Julius Nyerere. Mourners at the state funeral remembered his nation-building in guiding Tanzania's political union between mainland Tanganyika and the Indian Ocean islands of Zanzibar and Pemba.

Days after the country's first election without Julius Nyerere, that political union is facing its most serious challenge yet, as the party he founded tries to find direction without him. Although the former president stepped down from power in 1985, he continued to exercise near complete control over ruling party operations. There were compromises, but they were compromises that went through the man known as "mwalimu" Kiswahili for teacher.

In 1995, Julius Nyerere campaigned hard for his former press secretary, Benjamin Mkapa. Now President Mkapa is seeking re-election on his own in a political environment in which challengers are more willing to attack the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi Party, or C-C-M, now that Mwalimu Nyerere is gone.

Ahmed Hassan Diria is vice chairman of the ruling party's national election campaign. He says this first vote after Mwalimu Nyerere's death is the most important the party has ever had.

/// FIRST DIRIA ACT ///

It is important for us. It is important for our people. It is important for the international community as well. It is so important that we have to win this election as C-C-M. And we will be doing a great service to Mwalimu if we maintain three things: the stability, the cohesion, understanding, and of course a useful approach in our day-to-day activities.

/// END ACT ///

Mwalimu's death has widened splits within the party between old-guard holdovers from Nyerere socialism and younger, more progressive technocrats pushing privatization, anti-corruption, and regional integration.

Mohamed Ali Yusuf is a spokesman for the opposition Civic United Front, or C-U-F. He says Mwalimu's death has opened-up decades of dissent within the ruling party.

/// YUSUF ACT ///

There is a shift even in the C-C-M itself - the ideas. More people are independent now, free from Nyererism. If you look at C-C-M now, it has changed. There is radicalism within the C-C-M in the absence of Mwalimu Nyerere.

/// END ACT ///

Mr. Yusuf says Zanzibar's political standoff is just the sort of thing Tanzanians would expect Mwalimu Nyerere to find a way to work out.

Student Said Abdul Lateef says he voted for the opposition. He believes former President Nyerere did not pay enough attention to Zanzibar and concentrated so much power in his own hands that he discouraged the growth of other leadership.

/// LATEEF ACT ///

Everything in Tanzania is just within one person, it is centered on Mwalimu, so we actually appreciate whatever he did good, but still we cannot say that he was all that good because he kept us behind for 40 years, and all the problems we are facing is because of Mwalimu.

/// END ACT ///

Ahmed Hassan Diria says it is the opposition that is abusing Mwalimu's legacy. C-U-F wants to re-negotiate the island's 36-year-old union with mainland Tanganyika. Mr. Diria says that means breaking-up Tanzania, something he says the ruling party cannot allow in following its founder's vision of stability and development.

/// SECOND DIRIA ACT ///

The people of Tanzania, and Africa as a whole, they want the stability and the development. In Tanzania, the only party which has a vision, the only party which has experience, the only party which is extremely democratic, is C-C-M. Therefore, the people - what they want really is a new vision, and we have brought it to them.

/// END ACT ///

The results from this election will help show whether this party of the past can build on Mwalimu Nyerere's legacy to make itself part of Tanzania's future with a new generation of political leaders. (Signed)

NEB/SS/KL/TDW