From Goatherd to Governor. The Autobiography of Edwin Mtei: The Autobiography of Edwin Mtei

Chapter 23 - The 1995 General Elections

202 Chapter 23 The 1995 General Elections The General Elections of 1995 were the first real test for multiparty democracy in Tanzania. While CHADEMA was preparing for them by consolidating our membership throughout the country, Augustine Lyatonga Mrema resigned from CCM. Mrema had been Minister for Home Affairs in the second term of President Mwinyi, and because of his tough handling of criminal elements in the country, the President had designated him Deputy Prime Minister, although this post did not actually exist in the constitution. Towards the end of President Mwinyi’s tenure, Mrema, however seemed to have overreached himself in his publicity drive and the President removed him from this crucial ministry, appointing him Minister for Labour instead. Mrema’s penchant for bold approach to national issues however, continued and led him to attack some government measure in Parliament. He was therefore promptly relieved of his ministerial portfolio for breaching the principle of collective cabinet responsibility. Soon after this, Mrema announced that he had resigned from CCM. Parliamentwasabouttobedissolvedpendingtheelections,and Mrema, who was very popular with the masses, was being courted by a number of political parties to join them. CHADEMA sent a delegation to discuss with him the possibility of his joining us. His conditions, which he spelt out, were that CHADEMA should nominate him as the Presidential candidate for the next election, as well as appoint him national Party Chairman. The National Conference of the party had already been held and had mandated the National Executive Committee to decide on a presidential candidate in collaboration with other opposition parties willing to co-operate with CHADEMA. As for party chairmanship, our constitution specifically required that the chairman be elected by the national conference. So even if I personally had been willing to resign to make way for Mrema, logistics and cost meant it was impossible to reconvene such a conference. CHADEMA was, therefore, prepared to nominate Mrema as its presidential candidate, but not as its national Party Chairman. As a result, 203 Mrema decided to join NCCR, taking over from Mabere Marando as chairman, and also standing as their presidential candidate. CHADEMA stated that it would be ready to campaign for Mrema on the understanding that together with NCCR we would form a coalition government if we won. The central committees of the two parties would sit together and determine how to apportion the constituencies to ensure that whichever of the NCCR or CHADEMA candidates were stronger would stand to challenge the CCM or other party candidates. However, as it turned out, CHADEMA appeared to have been too enthusiastic in promising to support Mrema before an agreement in writing had been thrashed out and signed. In spite of treating Mrema as also our party’s presidential candidate, CHADEMA found itself being opposed in the constituencies by NCCR candidates. The Central Committee of NCCR argued that it had no mandate from its national conference to force their -candidates not to stand against ours. With Mrema as their presidential candidate they seemed to have suddenly become confident that they would win without the support of any other party. The campaign turned into a farce. Mrema was attracting such large crowds of unregistered unemployed youngsters, pushing his motor vehicle and women spreading their khanga for him to walk on, that he appeared to think he was already in State House. He started making reckless, vitriolic attacks on CCM stalwarts, threatening that if elected President he would summarily arrest some of them for crimes they had perpetrated and covered up. He brushed aside advice I gave him that he should be cautious and tone down his threats. Instead, he even stated that within twenty-one days of his entering State House, Ali Hassan Mwinyi would be in the high security prison of Ukonga, “drinking water from a ‘karai’,’ the large metal basin used by masons for carrying concrete mix. When Mrema and his NCCR campaign team paid a courtesy call on Mwalimu Nyerere at his Butiama residence, during their tour of the Mara Region, Mwalimu is reputed to have bluntly told them that he would never allow his country to be thrown to the dogs. Perhaps because of the reckless statements by Mrema, 204 Mwalimu Nyerere now fully entered the campaign in support of his favourite, Benjamin Mkapa, whom he rated as “clean and incorruptible”! One prominent CCM member recently told me that from the day I announced that my party...