There is something increasingly curious about the way Tanzania’s senior political figures leave office. They resign. They retire. They withdraw. They announce that they have chosen to step aside. Formally, these are voluntary acts.
Politically, however, the circumstances surrounding some of these departures raise a more uncomfortable question: when does resignation cease to be entirely voluntary?
Vice-President Emmanuel Nchimbi’s resignation brings that question sharply into focus. Announcing that he would leave office on September 4, Nchimbi said he had become “convinced beyond any doubt” that President Samia Suluhu Hassan wanted a different Vice-President. He was, he said, honouring an earlier commitment to step aside if she wanted a change.
The wording is extraordinary. He did not simply say that he had lost interest in the office or wished to retire. His explanation was essentially that he understood the President wanted someone else. The approach with which he found out, and the manner through which his Boss exhibited her desire for change, could be crucial in determining the nature of his resignation.
Yet Nchimbi is not new to the politics of resignation. In 2013, he resigned as Minister for Home Affairs amid political pressure following controversy surrounding Operation Tokomeza, an anti-poaching operation criticised for gross human-rights abuses. This time, though, the whole process smells different! The ruling CCM has subsequently expelled him from party membership, citing undisclosed disciplinary cases.
Voluntary resignation?
Resignation events in Tanzania call for analysis of at least three resignation models. Accountability resignation is perhaps the most expected all over the world, and Tanzania has examples.
In 1977, Ali Hassan Mwinyi resigned as Minister for Home Affairs following deaths and torture of residents in Mwanza and Shinyanga. Although he had not personally participated in or ordered the abuses, he felt he could not escape responsibility as the responsible minister.
Edward Lowassa provides another example. In 2008, he resigned as Prime Minister after a parliamentary investigation into the Richmond power contract implicated his administration in the scandal.
Both Mwinyi’s and Lowassa’s resignations are resignations in which political responsibility provides the stated justification: something happened under my watch; therefore, I should leave.
The second model is induced resignation, where political pressure makes departure the practical alternative. Sounds familiar? Aboud Jumbe’s resignation in 1984 belongs to this historical category.
His advocacy of a three-tier government structure brought him into conflict with President Julius Nyerere, eventually leading to his resignation as Zanzibar’s president and from his other government and party positions. Historical accounts describe the struggle over the Union as having forced his departure.
READ MORE: Tanzanian Vice President Resigns Amid Reports of Top Leadership Rift
More recently, the late Job Ndugai’s resignation as Speaker in 2022 followed his public criticism of government borrowing and intense political pressure from within CCM. Again, legally it was a resignation. Politically, however, it looked remarkably like an exit negotiated under pressure.
But resignation can also simply be made out of choice. This brings me to a third model, ‘voluntary resignation’. Humphrey Polepole’s resignation as Tanzania’s ambassador to Cuba in July 2025 is a useful example. He publicly broke with the government and cited concerns about the rule of law and the Constitution.
Whatever one thinks of his political position, his departure was recognisably an individual political choice rather than a constitutionally mandated removal.
Ambiguous cases
Then there are more Ambiguous Cases!
Former Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa announced on June 26, 2025 that he intended to seek re-election to Parliament, only to reverse himself days later and announce that he would not contest the Ruangwa seat. Was this simply a change of heart? Or had political circumstances changed between the two announcements? We may never know!
Then there is Dr Tulia Ackson, former Speaker of the National Assembly who replaced the embattled Job Ndugai. She did not merely walk away from the speakership. She withdrew from the race to retain it last year, while the process was underway.
Did she simply change her mind? Did she read the political writing on the wall? Or was there something else behind the decision? Again, the evidence does not allow us to conclude.
We may never find out what happened. The only hint we can speculate with is perhaps her Instagram post captioned ‘Mi’ with a voice of Lucky Dube’s ‘The way it is’ and the key lines “…Didn’t I raise my voice high enough for you’ and ‘now that you’ve got what you wanted, you don’t even know my name’. The target of the crypted hint? No one knows!
Constitutional significance
The Nchimbi, Ndugai and Jumbe cases discussed here bring us to the constitutional significance. The Vice-President and Speaker are not ordinary presidential appointees. Their offices are created and regulated by the Constitution, including specific procedures governing vacancies and removal.
The danger, therefore, is not resignation itself. Resignation is an essential feature of political accountability and individual choice. The danger is when resignation becomes a substitute for constitutional removal.
A constitution may be obeyed in form while being weakened in spirit if political pressure can achieve what a formal removal process was designed to regulate. That leaves us with a question Tanzania should not dismiss too quickly: Are we witnessing growing politics of resignation, from an act of accountability to an instrument of political management?
READ MORE: Nation Debates Tanzanian Vice President’s Call to ‘Fight for the New Constitution’
Ultimately, the constitutional form may be resignation, but the political substance may be dismissal. From Jumbe to Ndugai and now Nchimbi, resignation has too often served as an evasion of the rigorous and complex constitutional process for dismissal.
Sometimes the door is opened from the inside, sometimes from the outside. However, in both cases, the person leaving still gets to say, “I resigned.” Who’s next?
Festo Mulinda is a political analyst and freelance columnist. He can be reached at mulindafesto@gmail.com or on X as @fmulinda_III. The opinions expressed here are the writer’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of The Chanzo. If you are interested in publishing in this space, please contact our editors at editor@thechanzo.com.
