Yearbook 2005
Tanzania. According to countryaah, DDodoma is the capital and one of the major cities within the country of Tanzania. The fact that Tanzania has been a democracy since 1992 was hardly noticeable in the general elections that were held in late autumn. The Revolutionary Party (Chama Cha Mapinduzi, CCM) who ruled throughout the independence period got 206 of the 232 directly elected seats in parliament, and the party’s candidate Jakaya Kikwete got just over 80% of the vote in the presidential election. Kikwete, who has been Foreign Minister for the last ten years, succeeded Benjamin Mkapa, President of the same time, on December 21. He appointed a new Prime Minister, Edward Lowassa, who was previously responsible for water issues in the government.
- Also see abbreviationfinder.org for how the acronym TZ stands for the country of Tanzania and other meanings of this two-letter abbreviation.
The dominant opposition party Citizens United Front (Civic United Front, CUF) has its strongest attachment to the semi-autonomous archipelago of Zanzibar, where it took all 19 parliamentary seats. Nevertheless, CUF lost to CCM in Zanzibar’s local presidential and parliamentary elections in October. These were preceded by a troubled electoral movement in which a few hundred people were injured in clashes. CUF claimed that CCM’s electoral victory was achieved through cheating and received some support for the accusations by several observer groups. The EU also expressed skepticism about Zanzibar’s election results and recommended an investigation.
The relationship between Zanzibar and the mainland part of Tanzania has been strained for many years, and it did not help that Zanzibar in January got its own flag for the first time since the merger with the mainland part in 1964. In April, the local parliament in Zanzibar passed a law that forbids foreigners, explicitly including mainland Tanzanians, to work on the islands.
Politics
The legislative and presidential elections of October 1995, the first held after the adoption of a multi-party regime, recorded the victory of the ruling party (CCM), which won 186 of the 232 seats in the National Assembly, and its candidate BW Mkapa, who was elected president with 61, 8 % of the vote. The Civic United Front (CUF), a party in favor of Zanzibar’s autonomy, established itself as the main opposition party with 24 seats, and three other parties obtained parliamentary representation. Even in Zanzibar the CCM won, albeit by measure, the presidency with S. Amour, elected with 50, 2% of the votes, and the parliamentary majority with 26 out of 50 seats. This result was harshly contested by the opposition, who denounced fraud and refused to participate in parliamentary work for more than a year. The discontent that emerged during the elections made Zanzibar a factor of profound instability in the political landscape of Tanzania. The arrest of some members of the CUF at the beginning of 1998 further aggravated the tension on the island and only in June 1999 an agreement, albeit precarious, between the government and the opposition seemed to open the door to a peaceful solution. Mkapa, who was appointed since June 1996 also head of the party, favored a turnover of traditional political personnel – the executive appeared even more representative of the ethnic and cultural composition of the country – and launched a decisive battle against corruption, which reached very worrying levels in the previous administration, and became one of the problems most felt by public opinion. The personal commitment of the new president in this battle was expressed in the adoption of a very sober lifestyle and in the public declaration of the assets owned by his family at the time of the election. In economic policy the liberal approach of the past government was substantially confirmed and in November 1996 the reopening of credits by the IMF was obtained,due to delays in implementing economic reforms. In a situation made difficult by the cuts in public spending, imposed by structural adjustment policies, an element of further economic burden and a factor of growing social tension was also represented by the dramatic dimensions reached by the problem of refugees from Rwanda and Burundi. The willingness to welcome refugees from nearby crisis areas had always characterized the politics of the governments of Tanzania and, since 1963, thousands of refugees had come to Tanzania from Burundi, often finding stable accommodation in the country and acquiring its citizenship. Starting in 1994the new flow of refugees from Rwanda and Burundi, due to the tragic evolution of the civil conflict in those countries, severely tested a traditionally hospitable attitude and in April 1994 the government tried to curb the further influx of refugees into Tanzania. Mkapa confirmed a policy of containing new arrivals, implementing it with great difficulty, while the coup d’état, which took place in Burundi in 1996, led to a worsening of relations between the two countries.
September
Oil pipelines will be built from Uganda to the Tanzanian coast
September 13
President Magufuli and his Ugandan counterpart Yoweri Museveni sign an agreement that an oil pipeline will be built from Ugandan oil fields to the port of Tanga in Tanzania. The price tag for the project is set at $ 3.5 billion. Uganda has large oil resources that have not been able to be exploited due to lack of infrastructure and uncertainty about how the oil should be exported.
August
Lissu becomes Chadema’s presidential candidate
August 4th
The opposition party Chadema formally nominates Tundu Lissu as its candidate in the October presidential election. In 2017, Lissu was arrested at least six times and subjected to an assassination attempt, when he was shot 16 times outside his home in Dodoma. He then went into exile in Belgium where he has been rehabilitated. In July 2020, Lissu returned to Tanzania with the intention of challenging President Magufuli in the autumn elections.
