After taking a continental perspective throughout this series, I promised in Part Two that I would return home for this third and final episode, at least for now.
Tanzania is often presented as one of Africa’s exceptional success stories: peaceful, politically stable, marked by national unity and a comparatively restrained political culture. Much of that reputation is deserved; even the government’s own account stresses the country’s long record of avoiding civil war.
But stability should not be confused with accountability, and peace should not mean the absence of visible political disagreement. The political choices made since independence raise an uncomfortable question: what have we done with the freedom gained in 1961?
Tanzania’s size, resources and population invite a further question about unrealised potential. Have we used independence as fully as we could have done?
Tanzania’s first president, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, had more than two decades to shape the country. He was president of republican Tanganyika from 1962 and led the United Republic from its creation in 1964 until 1985.
Party and the state
Nyerere is revered across Africa. Yet he adopted a model in which national unity was prioritised over competitive party politics; a 1965 constitutional change formalised the one-party system, and scholarship on Nyerere’s theory of democracy records his case for it in the circumstances of a young nation.
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Who would have blamed him then? The country was young and fragile, in a region where political instability was common; unity was not an unreasonable concern.
But even necessary political choices have consequences. The one-party order, later reinforced by formal party supremacy, encouraged the close alignment remembered as Chama na Serikali — party and government — and made opposition easier to portray as a threat to cohesion rather than a necessary part of democracy.
When multiparty politics was restored constitutionally in 1992, the political architecture had already been designed around continuity. The first multiparty general election followed in 1995, but CCM’s long dominance and the weakness of political competition have remained central to Tanzania’s political story.
Tanzania therefore holds multiparty elections while a remarkably durable ruling party continues to dominate political life. Critics argue that institutional advantages have repeatedly disadvantaged political competitors; supporters of the system may point instead to continuity and orderly government.
The Constitution recognises executive, legislative and judicial organs, but it also gives the presidency extensive formal powers. The question is not whether a country needs a strong executive; it is whether institutions, citizens and political competitors can check it when they must.
Nyerere, once subject to colonial power, helped build a highly centralised political order. Did we learn from the authority we inherited, or merely change who exercised it?
When plans meet people
Perhaps the young state’s most consequential decision was its embrace of Ujamaa. Nyerere anchored the country’s future in a model of collective production, shared responsibility and social solidarity that he believed reflected African communal life.
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He imagined a country behaving like one extended family: producing together and consuming together. He was trying to fashion a distinctly Tanzanian model, not merely copy a foreign system, while resisting dependence on Western capitalism.
The Arusha Declaration of 1967 placed socialism and self-reliance at the centre of national strategy. Its ambition to reduce exploitation and build an egalitarian, self-reliant society was not inherently misguided.
But a good intention does not guarantee a good outcome. Early ujamaa villages had often been voluntary, whereas the mass villagisation drive that intensified from 1973 involved coercive resettlement in many places; Andrew Coulson’s account argues that rapid implementation disrupted production even as villages could improve access to schools, dispensaries and water.
Growing up, I heard stories of long queues outside village shops, compulsory communal labour and forced moves into village communities. These memories are not a complete economic history, but they are part of how many Tanzanians remember the period.
The lesson is not that Tanzania was wrong to pursue equality. It is that development cannot be built on ideology alone, and that evidence of failure must prompt the courage to change course.
Tanzania’s path also differs sharply from Singapore’s since 1965; World Bank data show a widening gap in output per person. That comparison does not prove that Ujamaa alone caused Tanzania’s relative position, but it should make us ask why countries that began as vulnerable young states travelled so differently.
When citizens speak
The colonial state was designed to govern and control, not to answer to those it governed. Independence was supposed to transform that relationship by making the state answerable to citizens, yet some instruments of control survived the transition.
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Tanzania’s Penal Code still defines seditious intention, including bringing lawful authority into hatred or contempt and exciting disaffection. The same provision says criticism that points out government errors in order to remedy them, or advocates lawful change, is not seditious for that reason alone.
That distinction matters. Article 18 of the Constitution protects opinion and expression, while the East African Court of Justice found comparable sedition provisions in the Media Services Act incompatible with the East African Community Treaty.
The issue is therefore not only the existence of an old law. It is whether inherited instruments are used to protect citizens, or to shield political authority from citizens; independent observers have continued to raise concerns about restrictions on expression, assembly and political competition.
Successive governments have often struggled to apply equal standards to praise and dissent. Supportive narratives can pass without scrutiny, while alternative viewpoints are more readily treated with suspicion; a brief look at Tanzanian social-media debates gives a sense of that public perception.
Can citizens declare without hesitation that they control their government? Can criticism of policy be freely expressed and protected? Can citizens peacefully march to Parliament against a policy or decree without fear? The answers remain uncertain.
Tanzania’s recent history cannot ignore the violence during and after the 29 October 2025 general election. The first Presidential Commission of Inquiry, established in November 2025, presented its report in April 2026; its public summary described deep political, economic, social and governance challenges, but the full report has not been publicly released.
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Beyond the disputes surrounding those events lies the broader concern of this series: colonial patterns of power can persist in an independent state. When a system is closed, unreceptive and reluctant to acknowledge grievances, a complaint is treated not as civic participation but as an attack on authority; the complainant becomes an adversary rather than a citizen.
A mature state does not investigate only the alleged wrongdoing of its opponents. It investigates every credible allegation, including those involving state institutions and security forces, with the same urgency it shows when its own authority is challenged.
A later six-member regional commission was launched to examine individual criminal responsibility for the October violence, with a 150-day mandate. It offers Tanzania another opportunity to prove its critics wrong and to take a step towards a second decolonisation.
None of this is to deny Tanzania’s achievements. The country has preserved relative stability and national unity, and avoided many of the violent political ruptures experienced elsewhere on the continent; achievements, however, should permit higher standards, not exempt a nation from self-examination.
From the ideological Nyerere to the reform-minded Ali Hassan Mwinyi and Benjamin Mkapa, from the liberal Jakaya Kikwete to the strong-willed John Magufuli and now Samia Suluhu Hassan, Tanzania has witnessed many promises and many disappointments.
Independence, in its fullest sense, remains a work in progress. Until the governing elite stop acting as “the Master” and citizens stop being treated as “subjects,” Tanzania’s independence will remain open to question; political freedom is not secured simply by replacing foreign rulers with local ones, but when power genuinely belongs to the people.
Festo Mulinda is a political analyst and freelance columnist focusing on international relations and geopolitics. 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.
