Political resignations in Tanzania are not new. Vice President Emmanuel Nchimbi’s resignation on August 25, 2026, adds to the list of high-profile resignations. Tanzania’s resignations reflect a mix of public accountability, internal party conflicts, curtailed political ambitions, and a loss of trust and confidence by the appointing authority.
Tanzania’s vice-presidency is often perceived as largely ceremonial, with its holder relegated to cutting ribbons, opening events and representing the President rather than shaping government policy.
Constitutionally, however, Article 47(1) makes the Vice President responsible for assisting with Union matters, undertaking presidential assignments, and performing presidential functions during the President’s absence.
However, the holder of the position is always one step away from ascending to the highest office in the event of the President’s death, as seen in 2021 with Samia Suluhu Hassan following Magufuli’s death.
Nchimbi’s resignation brings the past right before our present. Four decades earlier, Aboud Jumbe, who at that time served as Vice President, Zanzibar’s President and Vice Chairman of the ruling party CCM, relinquished all these positions in what Tanzania’s historian Issa Shivji described as “Jumbe’s trial.”
Jumbe was being ‘tried’ for his strong support for a three-government Union format. Tanzania, and indeed the ruling party, CCM, faced a difficult period between 1983 and 1984 over the composition and structure of the political Union between Tanganyika and Zanzibar.
Known as the ‘Crisis of the Union,’ this period was marked by intense debates over the Union, with factions within Zanzibar questioning Zanzibar’s position within it. Although Shivji pits the struggle as a battle between factions within Zanzibar, there were rumblings about the Union, which took the form of power struggles in the Isles.
Central to all this was Aboud Jumbe, who had, until then, taken an aloof position on the matter.
The meaning of resignation
The developments following Nchimbi’s resignation mirror Jumbe’s rather humiliating exit. Soon after Nchimbi’s letter, which appeared online, President Samia accepted his resignation.
This was followed by an announcement from CCM that the party had decided to expel him, citing disciplinary and ethical violations. While Nchimbi’s letter read that he was retiring from active politics and public service, the party decision was swift and unforgiving.
READ MORE: Tanzanian Vice President Resigns Amid Reports of Top Leadership Rift
It is evident from events of the past year that Nchimbi and President Samia had fallen out. On 20 August, the investigative newspaper Mwanahalisi was suspended for six months for reporting that Vice President Nchimbi was resisting pressure to resign following disagreement with the President.
This sequence makes it difficult to maintain a straightforward account of voluntary departure, although it exposes the internal schisms within CCM.
Jumbe’s downfall in 1984 came at the back of a long letter (waraka mrefu) he had drafted together with Bashir Swanzy, a Ghanaian lawyer whom he had hired as Zanzibar’s Attorney General to replace Damian Lubuva.
Awadh Said, a Zanzibari lawyer, once told me in a 2016 interview that Damian Lubuva, who served as Chairman of the National Electoral Commission (NEC), was brought to Zanzibar on the recommendation of Mwalimu Julius Nyerere. Bashir Swanzy was well known in Zanzibar, and according to Awadh Said, he even had a Zanzibari wife.
Jumbe’s grievances
Bashir Swanzy first came to Zanzibar to represent the Afro-Shirazi Party (ASP) in an election case just before the revolution. President Jumbe asked Swanzy to help him draft a letter that, in effect, questioned the format of the Union and, according to Jumbe himself, raised a question of interpretation of the Articles of the Union – the principal document of the Union.
The letter was drafted in English by Bashir Swanzy, and according to various sources and interviews I conducted a decade ago, it was supposed to be discussed first at the Revolutionary Council before being taken to the main man – Mwalimu Nyerere.
The letter was first to be translated into Swahili – a language common to the Revolutionary Council before being debated. The document/letter was titled The Case which the Revolutionary Government of Zanzibar has against the Executive of the United Republic of Tanzania and the Government of Tanganyika.
According to the title, this was a grievance letter that Jumbe used to produce the book “The Partner-Ship: Tanganyika Zanzibar Union, 30 Turbulent Years.”
Shivji notes that the document/letter was like a ‘charge sheet’ or ‘demand letter’. In it, Jumbe outlines Zanzibar’s dissatisfaction with the Union. The thrust of his argument is a three-government federal Union, which, according to him, was envisaged in the Articles of the Union.
Jumbe’s ideas are well captured in his book. Jumbe tears into the structure of the Union by questioning the legal interpretations of the Union’s Articles and the effects of consolidating the Union through the merger of the two parties.
Nchimbi’s subtle revolt
Times have changed since Jumbe’s downfall in 1984. Even under one-party rule, Jumbe documented his grievances and published his book “The Partnership” ten years later.
READ MORE: Nation Debates Tanzanian Vice President’s Call to ‘Fight for the New Constitution’
Nchimbi’s grievances have been rather subtle and nuanced. He called for Tanzanians to fight for a new constitution, reminiscent of Jumbe’s call for a restructuring of the Union, which offers a point of comparison.
As mentioned earlier, high-profile political resignations are not new in Tanzania. Within the ruling party CCM, these resignations, however, point to a disturbing trend – that dissent and ambition are not tolerated.
In 2008, Edward Lowassa was forced to resign as Prime Minister over allegedly corrupt dealings. Still, it is believed this was due to his falling out with President Jakaya Kikwete and to curb his presidential ambitions.
In 2022, Parliament Speaker Job Ndugai was forced to eat humble pie and resign after he criticised President Samia’s fiscal policy and the national debt. Other notable figures who have also been sidelined recently include Tulia Ackson, who succeeded Ndugai as Speaker; Philip Mpango, whom Nchimbi replaced; and Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa.
These episodes expose the overbearing power of Tanzania’s executive and the erosion of democracy within CCM, where silence increasingly becomes a necessary condition for political survival.
Dr Nicodemus Minde researches the contested memories of the Tanganyika-Zanzibar Union, the dynamics of Zanzibari nationalism, and the complex pathways toward reconciliation in the archipelago. He’s available at nminde96@gmail.com or on X as @decolanga. These are the writer’s own opinions and do not necessarily reflect the viewpoint of The Chanzo. Want to publish in this space? Contact our editors at editor@thechanzo.com for further inquiries.
