Elections and Steps To Independence
In May 1954 the reconstituted Legislative Council — thirty-one official and thirty unofficial members — came into being. The unofficial members had been chosen on the basis of racial parity from. each of the eight provinces and Dar es Salaam. Three special members, apparently representing the Arabs, the sisal industry, and Bukoba District, were also appointed. For the first time Swahili could be used in the council. The first meeting of this entirely appointed council in March 1955 was the occasion of a government proposal to hold elections for unofficial members in a few years, probably in 1958.
By 1956, therefore, the attention of all Tanganyika residents was turned toward elections and, with Twining's encouragement. the United Tanganyika Party (UTP) was formed to provide an alternative to TAN U. The UTP, headed by a European, was financed chiefly by European and Asian business interests, but African support was also sought. After Twining had decided that chiefs did not come under the ordinance forbidding civil servants to engage in politics, some important chiefs joined the party. The UTP's manifesto clearly supported the colonial government's policies on multiracialism.
The government fully intended the elections to reflect its multiracial policy, but it had not yet decided how that was to be accomplished. In the fall of 1956 it suggested that in three or four constituencies elections he held on a common roll but that each voter be required to vote for an African, an Asian, and a European. The formal qualifications for the franchise were set so high (an annual income of 4,000 shillings, or a Standard XII education—that is, advanced secondary schooling, or employment in certain posts) that relatively few Africans could have qualified. The Africans in the Legislative Council, whatever their views, could not accept these limitations, which would have disqualified persons holding quite responsible posts. A committee of the council was then formed to reconsider the matter.
The government accepted the committee's recommendation that the educational qualification he lowered to Standard VIII (completion of middle school) and that the income qualification he changed to 3,000 shillings, These qualifications made all Europeans, most Asians, but only about 60,000 Africans (of between 9 and 10 million) eligible to vote. Shortly thereafter it was decided that there would be a common roll in all constituencies, elections to be held in five of them in 1958 and in the remaining five in 1959. Thirty unofficial members, equally divided among the races, were to be chosen.
TANU and many Africans considered the limitations on the franchise and the insistence of the government that each voter choose a candidate of each race so contrary to their goals that, for a time, they contemplated boycotting the elections. In early 1958, however, a TANU conference decided that the party would contest them.
The preparation for elections was taking place in conjunction with a variety of government and TANU activities as each tried to develop support. In May 1957 Governor Twining called the Convention of Representative Chiefs. Assuring them that the British proposed to remain in the territory for a long time, he stressed the significance of the tribe (ethnic group) as the fundamental African entity and of the chiefs' role as political and spiritual leaders of their groups. Further he urged their opposition to a political party made up of detribalized individuals moved by alien ideas.
The chiefs owed their positions to the approval of the colonial authorities, but they had been put into a very difficult position by these same authorities who had insisted that they support and enforce unpopular rules. Moreover the chiefs did have varying personal and cultural backgrounds, and their political views were not homogeneous. In late 1957 and early 1958, therefore, many of them sought to come to terms with TANU. In 1958 a leading chief, Fundikira, decided to ask for its support in running for the Legislative Council, and the Convention of Representative Chiefs formally supported his decision.
TANU, which had emphasized work in the rural areas from its inception (and continued to do so) had occasion in 1957 and 1958 to cooperate with the Tanganyika Federation of Labour, supporting it in a number of strikes and in a boycott, At this time Rashidi M. Kawawa and Michael Kamaliza, already associated with TANU, became leaders of the organization. The increasing influence of unions notwithstanding, policy remained in the hands of TANU.
Unrest in this period was endemic in the rural areas, often in reaction to government efforts to establish multiracial district councils. The strongest manifestation of unrest occurred in that part of Sukumaland included in Geita District. The first, probably spontaneous, demonstrations developed over a period of months into other outbreaks of dissatisfaction, including riots, and a march to Mwanza, the provincial capital.
The leaders of these activities were not, to begin with, members of TANU. although they joined it later. The area was visited by Paul Romani, the province's African representative in the Legislative Council and sympathetic to TANU, and Nyerere who, at that time, was forbidden by government order to make public speeches. At that point he did not have to: there was a significant public demonstration for TANU.
As the elections neared Nyerere was under constant pressure. In the summer of 1958 he was tried for criminal libel because TANU's newsletter alleged that several district officers had discriminated against Africans. By this time Sir Richard Turnbull had succeeded Twining as governor of Tanganyika, and it has been suggested that he acted to relieve tensions when Nyerere was convicted by urging a fine rather than a prison sentence. On the one hand the government thought that violent action might follow a harsher sentence; on the other, TANU would have lost its most significant and persuasive voice at a crucial point.
In the spring of 1958 TANU decided that it must seek to elect not only the five African candidates it had nominated but that it also ought to try to influence the outcome of elections for European and Asian candidates. (Nyerere could not succeed in his effort to open TANU itself to European and Asian members, but a splinter group insisting on a purely African Tanganyika and objecting to any cooperation with non-Africans had no electoral success.) Under the circumstances TANU could only do so by urging African voters to support non-UTP candidates already nominated. In September 1958 all fifteen seats were won by members of TANU or by Europeans and Asians supported by TANU.
It was clear that this strategy would also succeed in the elections of February 1959 for the remaining fifteen seats, and only three of them were contested. The new Legislative Council was to have thirty unoffical members who were either members of TANU or backed by it.
In October 1958, with the results of the first elections in and the results of the second anticipated, Governor Turnbull, in a speech to the Legislative Council, came to terms with the part of TAN U's program that Governor Twining had resisted as long as he held office. Referring specifically to the district councils, but in effect speaking to the general issue of multiracialism, he stated that there was no bar to purely African councils. He further indicated that parity of the races in the Legislative Council and the Executive Council was a temporary measure and that he expected Africans to constitute a predominant majority in both when "self-government is eventually attained." In short Tanganyika was seen as an African country.
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