Dar es Salaam. CHADEMA national chairperson Freeman Mbowe announced Saturday that he will defend his leadership position in Tanzania’s main opposition party in the intraparty election slated for January 2025, hoping his twenty-year-old record of party building will convince members to entrust him with the role for another five-year term.
CHADEMA will hold the highly anticipated election of its national leaders and heads of its various party wings early next year to elect new leadership that will be consequential in the party’s participation and ultimate successes in the 2025 general election.
Mr Mbowe, 63, becomes the third aspirant to the high-ranking party position after Mr Tundu Lissu, the current CHADEMA deputy national chairperson (Tanzania Mainland), and Mr Romanus Romanus Mapunda, a CHADEMA member, had expressed the same intention and even collected election forms to confirm their intentions.
“I have critically reflected on this decision,” Mr Mbowe told a press conference at his home in Mikocheni, Dar es Salaam. “I’ve said on multiple occasions that I desire to step down [as party chairperson], but I cannot do so now amidst existing tussles and wrangling [within the party].
“Therefore, I’m still at CHADEMA, I’ll continue to be here, I’ll run [for party chairmanship], and I, accompanied by party leaders who support me and those who don’t support me, we’ll have a conversation around what is needed to position our party [for the future] properly.”
Mr Mbowe’s announcement came 48 hours after he promised party members and leaders from across the country who gathered at his home on December 18, 2024, to convince him to run for the position and whom he promised to make his announcement public after 48 hours.
The announcement also comes almost two weeks after Mr Lissu announced his plan to unseat Mr Mbowe as CHADEMA national chairperson so that he can organise and mobilise party members and Tanzanians and boost their morale in “rising against the totalitarian rule” that he thinks currently characterises the country’s politics.
Mbowe’s legacy
However, Mr Mbowe still thinks he’s the best option for CHADEMA and its aspirations to form a government in Tanzania soon. Party chairperson since September 14, 2004, Mr Mbowe takes credit for much of the transformations that have occurred within the party for the last two decades, promising to deliver more if he continues to serve the party as its national chairperson.
Some of these milestones that Mr Mbowe is so proud of are the preparation of the party constitution, regulations, protocols, and other guidelines, which laid the foundation for CHADEMA to grow as an institution with systems that ensure its resilience and sustainability. Under his leadership, the party introduced several wings and its current flag.
CHADEMA also fielded its first presidential candidate under Freeman Mbowe in 2005. During the preceding general elections of 1995 and 2000, the party endorsed NCCR-Mageuzi’s Augustino Mrema and CUF’s Ibrahim Lipumba, respectively. To Mbowe, this was significant as “it introduced the institution to the Tanzanian public.”
Mr Mbowe also said that several operations – Kimya Kimya, CHADEMA ni Tawi, Sangara, CHADEMA ni Msingi, Vua Gamba, Vaa Gwanda, Movement 4 Change (M4C), Mshike Mshike, Mzizima, etc., – that he engineered had a significant impact in the growth of CHADEMA as a serious and reputable opposition party.
Reasons to run
“I’ve therefore reflected upon and looked at the main issues before us at the moment [and concluded that I should run],” Mr Mbowe said. “We need the New Constitution; we need the New Constitution by playing with all legs: diplomacy, engagement, protests, no matter what weapon we can use to get the New Constitution. This is our party’s fundamental agenda.
READ MORE: Talks of Division as 2025 Nears: Why It’s a Make-or-Break Moment for CHADEMA
“We have launched programmes that we must ensure their success. We’re implementing a grassroots party fortification programme to give our party grassroots bases at village and sub-village levels. We have yet to implement this programme countrywide, which we must do. This requires leaders with spirit and willingness.
“We are in the middle of the war. The [2025] general election is just a few months away. What will be the impact [to the party] if we replace our commandos and generals amidst this war?”
Factions
Elections within CHADEMA are going to occur against the backdrop of sharp division between Mr Mbowe and Mr Lissu and their respective factions over the approach the party needs to take to respond to the harsh reality of doing politics in Tanzania in the presence of reports of repression and election fraud and violence.
Mr Lissu advocates for radical intervention through mass mobilisation and actions. He has criticised the current party leadership and its response to these challenges, including its willingness to “reconcile” with the ruling Chama cha Mapinduzi (CCM) and its government.
Lissu has criticised the approach, noting that the arrangement smells of corruption and is intended to lure current party leadership into accepting what he calls a “half-loaf-of-bread government,” accompanied by promises of government positions for CHADEMA’s top leaders.
However, Mr Mbowe has vehemently denied all these accusations, defending the party’s decision to reconcile with CCM and the government as reasonable and rational, which provided CHADEMA and the nation with much-needed relief and reforms.
READ MORE: Are Cracks Forming In Tanzania’s Main Opposition Party?
These include the suspension of dozens of criminal cases that prosecutors had filed against many CHADEMA members and leaders, the release of party leaders and members from prisons, and the government’s release of over Sh2 billion to CHADEMA, which allowed the party, among other things, to build a new and modern party headquarters in Mikocheni.
During his press conference on Saturday, Mr Mbowe added that the reconciliation lifted a ban previously imposed on political rallies organised by opposition parties, significantly enhancing their ability to build themselves at the grassroots levels.
He blamed the “death” of reconciliation efforts partly on Mr Lissu’s publicly attacking them, which Mr Mbowe believed emboldened some conservative forces within CCM and the government, opposed to the efforts from the beginning, to sabotage them successfully.
CHADEMA, a centre-right political party, was established on May 28, 1992, immediately after Tanzania reintroduced political pluralism. Its founders, Mr Edwin Mtei and Bob Makani worked as governor and deputy governor at the Bank of Tanzania (BoT) before founding the party.
Mr Mtei, who also served as planning and economy minister from 1978 to 1981, served as CHADEMA’s first chairperson, serving the party from 1992 to 1998. He was succeeded by Mr Makani, who led the party as its national chairperson from 1998 to 2004 when he handed the leadership baton to Mr Mbowe.
When the party was founded, Mr Mtei served as its first national chairperson, while Mr Makani served as its first secretary-general.
