Dar es Salaam — CHADEMA secretary general John Mnyika told the High Court on Monday that Tundu Lissu’s April 3, 2025 speech, from which the treason charge arose, was an explanation of the party’s formally adopted No Reforms, No Election policy, rather than a personal call to threaten the government.
Mnyika, appearing as the second defence witness, said the party’s policy had been approved successively by its Central Committee in December 2024, its Governing Council in January 2025 and the General Assembly a day later. He said the April meeting with party aspirants was called to explain that policy and answer internal questions about it.
The testimony marked the start of the defence case’s factual account of the events surrounding the speech, after Lissu completed his own evidence last week.
Later in the day, the prosecution began cross-examining Mnyika, testing whether CHADEMA used journalists to spread the message and whether its policy was consistent with the constitutional right of citizens and parties to participate in elections.
A party policy
Mnyika told Justices Dunstan Ndunguru, Karyemaha and Kiwonde that Lissu’s address was a two-hour-plus explanation of a party position developed over years of disputes about Tanzania’s electoral framework.
He said the speech dealt with, among other issues, constituency delimitation by population, an independent electoral commission, independent election staff and access to courts to challenge presidential results.
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He said Lissu traced the demands for reform to the Nyalali Commission of 1991 and 1992, and mentioned later bodies including the Kisanga Commission, the Bomani Committee and the Warioba Commission. Mnyika said the speech also described CHADEMA’s concerns about the 2019 local government elections and the 2020 General Election.
Tundu Lissu: “What did the chairperson say about the issues requiring changes in our electoral system?”
John Mnyika: “He explained issues he had researched for a long time and matters election observers had raised. He spoke about population quota, an independent electoral commission, independent commission staff and the ability to challenge presidential results in court.”
Mnyika said the No Reforms, No Election position was not devised by Lissu alone. He said the Central Committee convened an emergency meeting on December 2 and 3, 2024, after the local government polls, and adopted ten resolutions, including a conclusion that the existing constitutional and legal environment could not deliver free and fair elections.
According to Mnyika, the committee resolved that CHADEMA should mobilise citizens to demand constitutional and legal reforms before the 2025 elections for councillors, MPs and president. The resolution was then adopted by the Governing Council on January 20 and the General Assembly on January 21, he said.
Lissu was elected CHADEMA national chairperson on January 22, 2025, Mnyika said. He added that party organs meeting in Bagamoyo from January 31 to February 4 adopted an implementation plan that included public rallies, engagements with religious leaders, private-sector and civil-society actors, media organisations, regional bodies and international partners.
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Mnyika said he was among a ten-person CHADEMA delegation that met President Samia Suluhu Hassan in May 2022, and that subsequent talks between CHADEMA and a CCM team led by Abdulrahman Kinana ended in May 2023 without agreement on changes that the party considered necessary for the 2024 and 2025 elections.
He further testified that the Registrar of Political Parties said publicly on February 10, 2025 that No Reforms, No Election was a political slogan that did not violate the law, after CHADEMA had explained the campaign to the registrar’s office.
Disputed words
Lissu asked Mnyika directly whether expressions in the charge, including “this position signals rebellion,” “we will mobilise rebellion,” “we will stop the election” and “tutakinukisha” amounted to threatening the government.
Mnyika said he did not see a government agency or official mentioned in the words as read to him. He described the expressions as political language intended to encourage the public to reject an election the party considered deeply flawed and to pursue lawful democratic means to stop it.
Tundu Lissu: “How does someone who says those words threaten the government?”
John Mnyika: “I have not seen where the government is mentioned, so I do not see how the government can have been threatened.”
Mnyika said he understood the reference to rebellion as political resistance to an oppressive system. He invoked a statement he attributed to the late founding president Julius Nyerere that a country needs young people who rebel against oppressive systems.
Tundu Lissu: “What is wrong with mobilising rebellion?”
John Mnyika: “There is no problem. Democratically, it means mobilising people to reject or oppose certain things.”
Tundu Lissu: “What is wrong with saying, ‘We will stop the election’?”
John Mnyika: “There is no problem. People can use democratic means, for example to press the authorities to postpone an election or to boycott it. If people do not participate, there is no election.”
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Mnyika said the No Reforms, No Election wording itself did not include the phrase “we will mobilise rebellion.” But he said the political resistance described in the speech was the meaning he attached to the party’s position.
The April 3 meeting
Mnyika said the April 3 meeting at CHADEMA headquarters was convened for party aspirants, following a memorandum from some aspirants who urged a change in the party’s electoral-reform position. He said Lissu was invited to address the aspirants and other senior party leaders.
The party invited journalists to the initial session, Mnyika said, so they could report the demands for constitutional and legal reforms. He said media houses were neither instructed to bring particular equipment nor told what to publish, and that a short later session was held privately with leaders and aspirants after the media had left.
Tundu Lissu: “The prosecution says I published those words on YouTube. What is your response?”
John Mnyika: “That charge is false and fabricated. A party chairperson is not involved in journalists’ work. Journalists were left free to do their work under freedom of the media.”
Mnyika said he had been told by the party’s legal counsel, Dr Rugemeleza Nshala, that the words at issue in the case were said to have been published by Jambo TV.
But he told the court that, when he checked Jambo TV’s online platform, he did not find a short standalone clip containing those words; he saw a link to a recording of a meeting lasting roughly three hours.
He said it was therefore impossible, in his view, to extract a handful of words from the longer speech without losing their intended meaning.
Mnyika also said neither he, other members of the party secretariat, aspirants who attended, nor journalists who covered the meeting had been arrested or questioned by police over the disputed statements.
He said he had not informed police of the wording after the meeting and had issued no instruction to party officers about the treason allegation.
Action against the party
The secretary general testified that a series of actions against CHADEMA followed Lissu’s April 9, 2025 arrest.
He said documents seeking to sue the party and halt its activities were signed on the same day, and that the following day an order was issued preventing the party from carrying out activities and using its assets.
Mnyika said the Registrar of Political Parties subsequently questioned the status of his appointment and that of other party officers, declined to recognise those appointments after an exchange of letters, and later stopped party subsidies.
He also referred to statements by election officials on April 12, 2025 that CHADEMA would not be allowed to take part in the election because it had not signed an electoral code-of-conduct form.
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The prosecution did not have an opportunity to test those assertions in full before the court took its afternoon break.
Lissu then asked Mnyika about previous cases involving CHADEMA leaders, including the 2018 prosecution after the killing of student Akwilina Akwilini and the 2021 terrorism case against former chairperson Freeman Mbowe.
Mnyika described these cases as part of what he called a pattern of using prosecutions to obstruct CHADEMA’s campaigns for democratic reform.
He said he and eight other party leaders were convicted and fined more than Sh300 million in 2020 over allegations connected with the 2018 events, but were later acquitted by the High Court in June 2021. He said the party leaders had not recovered the money, an assertion not tested during the day’s hearing.
Mnyika also said Mbowe’s terrorism case was later withdrawn after the DPP filed a notice of no intention to proceed. A laugher broke out in the courtroom when Lissu asked whether a similar change of circumstances could be imagined in his own case.
Tundu Lissu: “What connection do all those cases have with mine?”
John Mnyika: “They are a continuation of fighting CHADEMA through the courts to obstruct the struggle for real democracy and changes in the electoral system.”
Asked how long he had known Lissu, Mnyika said they had worked together in party structures since 2003. He described Lissu as committed to political change and said he regarded the treason charge as “the cost you are paying for being truthful and seeking change in this country.”
Cross-examination begins
Principal State Attorney Nassoro Katuga began the prosecution’s cross-examination after the break. His early questions examined CHADEMA’s constitution, the secretary general’s role, the party’s purpose of seeking political power through democratic means and the status of other registered political parties.
READ MORE: Tundu Lissu Treason Trial: High Court Explains Its Reasoning Behind Case-to-Answer Ruling
Mnyika accepted that CHADEMA’s constitution values patriotism, traditions and multiparty democracy. He resisted the suggestion that this prevented a CHADEMA member from opposing another party’s view, saying the same constitutional commitment protects freedom of opinion.
Katuga also asked whether Mnyika was an interested witness because Lissu had nominated him as secretary general. Mnyika replied that he had party and public interests, but not the personal interest the prosecutor appeared to suggest.
The prosecutor then questioned him about the April 3 meeting and the recording. Mnyika said he followed a large part of it, had heard some of Lissu’s statements about stopping the election and mobilising rebellion, but did not hear a statement that judges were CCM members.
He maintained that news outlets were invited, not used or controlled, and were free to decide whether to broadcast. When Katuga suggested this allowed them to perform the work CHADEMA intended, Mnyika disagreed.
Katuga: “They did the work you intended them to do, did they not? Answer without fear.”
Mnyika: “Remove the word fear. I have no fear at all. I do not see the good work you are talking about.”
Mnyika compared the competing descriptions of the private second part of the meeting and the independently broadcast first part to seeing a glass as “half empty” or “half full.” The courtroom briefly laughed.
Katuga asked for an adjournment at about 5 p.m., saying he had further questions. Lissu said he did not object, and Justice Ndunguru adjourned the case to Tuesday, September 1, at 9:00 a.m. for the cross-examination of Mnyika to continue.
