A
multi-party system is a system in which multiple political parties have the capacity to gain control of
government separately or in coalition.[1] It
is a system where there are large amounts of major and minor political parties
that all hold a serious chance of receiving office, and because they all
compete, a majority may not come to be, forcing the creation of a coalition.
While Monopartism is political system in which popular parties are discouraged
in the state and only single party dominate the government system and control
the ruling activities in the state.
Therefore
Multipartism system in East Africa around early 1960’s was determined by ethnicity,
racial, religionalism, regionalism and tribalism. For instance, Kalenjin,
political alliance, Maasai united Front, in Kenya while in Tanzania involved Arab
association, African association, Shiraz and Indian association.
Also
around 1960’s the situation started to changes, since most of the parties was
struggling to get political power for their own interests, that is why other
political parties tend to collapse
totally while others continued to maintain its political power for a long time
as Mono-party in the state. So the discussion
on this paper will concentrating on explains on how Tanzania and Kenya transformed
from the Multipartism to Monopartism in the early of 1960’s. But the discussion
will start with Tanzania and then accomplished with Kenya as follows;
Tanzania
is a country which constitutes the union between Tanganyika (now Tanzania
mainland) and Zanzibar. Both Zanzibar and Tanzania mainland provide us with
interesting political developments during the nationalists struggle for independence,
and the period after independence. The period of struggle for independence was
characterized by the growth of ethnised politics.[2] Therefore the transition from Multipartism to
monopartism in Tanzania was based on the following ways in the case of Zanzibar
Island.
Through the split, it was the
situation where by the political parties tend to join and some time to diverge
each other due to their own interests in terms of political, economic and
social influences, so that split also was influences much by the parties’
leader who tend to introduce their own new political parties. In the line of
process above the Zanzibar started to develop the Mono-party system. The
political parties involves were the Zanzibar National Party (ZNP) which was formed
in 1955, and then Afro-Shiraz Party(ASP) in 1957 under Abeid Amani Karume, also
Zanzibar and Pemba People’s Party (ZPPP) in 1959 under the leader ship of Sheikh
Muhamed Shamte and lastly Umma Party in 1963, under Abdulrahaman Mohamed Babu. So in these
political parties the ZPPP was a splinter of ASP, the spilt of ZPPP from ASP
was typical of the racial character of Zanzibar nationalists’ politics, as ZPPP
was basically a party of Shirazi racial group which had frictions with Africans
mainland origin within ASP. The Umma party was formed also as a splinter of the
ZNP under the leader of Abdulrahaman Mohamed Babu. Babu was dissatisfied with
the racialist policies and ideological tendencies of the ZNP and therefore decided
to move out and form the Umma party. This was therefore a party which was more
revolutionary with less tendencies of racialism.[3] In
the time Umma party was as Mono-party system but later on the election held.
The transition following by
election in 1957 and 1963 four elections were held. The first election was held
in July 1957 with intention of having of 6 elected members in the legislative
council. In that election, ASP which was a newly formed party got 5 seats and 1
seat was won by a Muslim league thus the ZNP was totally defeated. The outcome
of these election not only shocked the ZNP and Arabs, but it also greatly
increased tension between Africans and Arabs landowners and from external
donors, So the ZNP preparing it for the next election another election of July
1963, the result was that ASP won 13 seats, the ZNP 12 and ZPP 6 seats. The
coalition was done between ZNP and ZPPP gave them a total of 18 seats.[4] The
ZNP formed the government as Mono-party in 19th December in 1963.
The next remarkable steps were through
revolution and constitution changes of Zanzibar. Since the results of 1961 and
that 1963 under Arab minority did not please ASP and Africans as whole. This ASP
prepared for a revolution which took place on the 12th January in
1964. The Zanzibar revolution had three main objectives, it was intended to
remove the British colonialist and that done through constitutional changes
also the revolution was to bring about socialism. Since the Zanzibar revolution
brought the ASP and the Africans majority into political power, from the time Multipartism
was abolished, thus the ASP and later CCM enjoyed a Mono-party of power under a
one-party system.[5]
After seeing the Zanzibar
transition from multiparty to Mono-party let also discuss the Tanzania mainland
as to accomplish the transition of Tanzania.
Tanzania mainland was dominated by multiparty
like Tanganyika United Party (UTP), African National Congress (ANC) African Muslims
National Union of Tanganyika (AMNUT) each party was defending its own interest.
But it was Tanganyika African National Union (TANU) which was a National and
territorial party. It was formed in 1954 under the leadership of Mwailmu Julius
Nyerere. TANU was born out of the
Tanganyika African association (TAA) where TANU replaced all branches of TAA in
Tanganyika and become the popular party[6]. The Monopartism in Tanzania mainland was
established through the following ways,
Through abolition of racialization
and regionalization political parties where by Mwalimu Julius Nyerere was
against that system therefore he decided to adopt one party system in 1965. The
decision to establish a one-party system was reached by the executive committee
of TANU in 1963 after which a presidential commission was formed which prepared
a one-party constitution in 1964, and then adopted in 1765.[7]
Also the one-party system in Tanzania was able to develop a strong mass-based
national ideology, and that is the ideology of socialism and self-reliance
where as the one-party system was declared in 1965 and in 1967 the Arusha
declaration which passed the policy and ideology of socialism under Mwalimu
Julius Nyerere whereby the socialism was instated on the monoparty system in
the state. So from the time the Tanzania was typically the mono-party state
under TANU and later CCM.
Apart from Tanzania also Kenya
showed the transformation from Multipatism to Monoaprtism. The formation of
ethnic political parties and therefore the growth of ethnised politics began to
take place also during 1950’s. The political parties which were formed were
district and ethnic-based, among of such organization included the Kalenjin
political alliance, the Maasai united front and the Abaluhya political union.[8] At
the time of independence Kenya had a multi-party system with three political
parties which were KANU, KADU, and APP. Through Kikuyu-Luo based , KANU gradually began to marginalised the Luo and
it therefore because of Kikuyu party soon after independence, KADU was based on minority ethnic groups while
APP was based on the Kamba ethnic group.[9] So
the following steps after independence initiated the mono-party in Kenya.
Through restricting the provision
of government financial support to the oppositional political parties. As the technique to maintain their power the ruling
party initiated its existences after independence. Soon after independence in
1963, the rulling party KANU, and its new government under President Jomo
Kenyatta began to take steps which made it difficult for the opposition parties
to operates. So in 1964 KADU and APP dissolved themselves voluntary and therefore
KANU come under a defacto one-party system[10].
Due to that situation Kenya abolished the Multiparty system and continued with
the mono party system from the time.
Another way was through banned of
some political parties and assassination of some leaders in Kenya who had great
influences, in order to reduce the emergence of more strong political parties
which can oppose the ruling one. For
example the assassination of Tom Mboya in 1969, the tension that follow
resulted into the arrest and detention of
Oginga Odinga and other KPU leader and
KPU was banned by the government,
once more Kenya became a de facto one party state. With the departure of Odinga from KANU in 1966
and the assassination of Tom Mboya in 1969 the Kikuyu enjoyed full control of
both the party and the state.[11]
In addition it was through
government propaganda and politicians influences. The ruling government was
against the introduction of multiparty in order to control their power.
Particularly when the KANU and the government resisted against pressures to
introduce multipartism they argued that mulitipartism would disintegrate the country
into ethnic violence. Also it was supported by the fact that the Kalenjin
ethnic groups are said to have been instigated by some Kalenjin politicians who
were opposed to multi-party because they wanted to maintain the one-party state
quo in order to perpetuate the Kalenjin power bases.[12] In
summary the whole process initiated the mono-party system in Kenya though later
on, the system changed too.
Generally speaking around the
1990’s the system of mono-party in both Kenya and Tanzania changes since then,
world politics was changed to democratic ways, so the ruling system under one
party was no longer function again. So the thing like influences from
Structural Adjacent Programme(SAP’s) and other supports from donor countries
influenced Tanzania and Kenya to adopt the international multiparty politics.
Also internally it was seemed like that the one-party system was too much
corrupt and bad governance so people was in need of political freedom so the only solutions was through the
respond to world mulitipartism, so up to date almost the all Africa country have adopted the multipartism.
REFERENCES
Mpangala,
P. (2000). Ethnic Conflicts in the Region
of the Great Lake: origins and prospects for
Change. Dar es Salaam
institute of Kiswahili research
Msekwa.
P. (2006). Reflection on the first Decade of Multipartism politics in Tanzania.
Hanns
Seidel
foundation. Dar es Salaam.
[2] Gaudence P. Mpangala (2000). Ethnic Conflicts in the Region of the Great
Lake: origins and prospects for Change. Pp57-58
[3] Gaudence
P. Mpangala (2000). Ethnic Conflicts in
the Region of the Great Lake: Origins
and prospects for Change.. Pp60-61
[5] Gaudence
P. Mpangala (2000). Ethnic Conflicts in
the Region of the Great Lake: Origins
and
prospects for Change. Pg 62
[6] Ibid
Pg 65
[7] Ibid
pg 66
[8] Oyugi in Gaudence P. Mpangala (2000). Ethnic Conflicts in the Region of the Great
Lake: origins and prospects for Change. Pg 52
[9] Ibid
Pg. 53
[10] Ibid
Pg. 54
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