Why Tanzania’s new president is doing the right thing the
wrong way and why he may fail
Since early November 2015, newly elected Tanzanian
president, John Pombe Magufuli, has captured the imagination of many African
elites on social media by his brazen actions of cutting unnecessary government
spending and firing “incompetent and lazy” government employees. He visited a
hospital unannounced and after being appalled by its sorry state, fired
management and the board right on the spot. He went to the port of Dar es
Salaam, and seeing the mess, fired the entire management there and then. He
cancelled independence anniversary celebrations and directed that the money be
used for health services. He cut foreign trips by government officials saying
ambassadors can do the work. The story goes on and on.
The hype about Magufuli on social media shows us how easily
gullible human beings (most especially a particularly loud section of elites in
Africa) are. Secondly, it also shows that this section of elites is
ideologically confused and therefore does not know what it is always for and
against. Let me deal with each of these issues (gullibility and ideological
confusion) in turn. Some information from Tanzania suggests that Magufuli
actually lost the election to Edward Lowassa (which in Africa means he won with
less votes than was officially declared). But whatever the validity of this
claim, it seems Magufuli came to office with limited legitimacy.
It is, therefore, imperative he adopts a lot of the
opposition’s arguments against CCM’s well-known corruption and incompetence.
This way, Magufuli is a brilliant political tactician. He has by a few strokes
removed the rug from under the feet of the opposition. But this may also mean
he has legitimized the theft of the election. All of a sudden, everyone has
forgotten the election irregularities. Magufuli has out dribbled Lowassa whose
claims of electoral theft have been drowned in the euphoria of the “radical
reforms” by the new president. But do these actions constitute reform?
It should be obvious that Magufuli cannot bite the hand
(corruption in CCM) that raised him to and will ensure his survival in power.
If I were President Yoweri Museveni, this is exactly what I would have done in
2016 (or would do in 2021). There is Museveni fatigue in Uganda. So I would
leave power to a hand-picked successor. If he loses against the determined
Kizza Besigye, I steal the votes. Then I would ask him to do a Magufuli and sit
back and watch Ugandan (read African) elites praising the new president for his
bold and radical reforms. I would then watch a few who criticise the new
president be drowned by popular condemnations on social media for not
supporting the “great reforms” by their newly found hero.
This brings me to the second point: the ideological confusion
among this loud section of elites in Africa. If you follow public debate on
social media, most elites argue that, “Africa has failed” because of the
personalized ways in which our presidents conduct state business. I no longer
think Africa has failed. And I think where power is personalized; leaders are
filling the gap of an institutional vacuum. After a lot of reading and
reflection, I am inclined to believe Africa’s success defy imagination, a
subject I will return to with data on another day. For now, let us look at
Magufuli’s “reforms.”
What Magufuli is doing may be good political stuntsmanship
but it is not reform. He may be setting the tone of his administration. But I
think he is going about it the wrong way. He is likely to fail to capitalize on
the current public support to sustain the reform momentum. His actions are
highly personalized and arbitrary. If sustained they are likely to do more harm
than good. There is no indication that his “reforms” enjoy the support of his
party, parliament or even the opposition. Unless we are hoping for one-man
reform as a model for success, it should be obvious therefore that his
“reforms” cannot last because they lack backing from the ruling party.
And if you have studied cases of successful reform, you would
know that Tanzania’s president is either acting or ignorant of how to reform a
bad system. Magufuli may be a smart political stuntman but he is not a
reformer. Reform cannot be so impulsive, ad hoc and an act of a lone ranger.
One can say that Magufuli is not conducting reform but merely setting the tone
of his new government. He may then proceed with his cabinet and CCM executives
to define the actual reforms. Unless top CCM executives agreed to his “tone”
beforehand he is likely to stimulate resistance.
In many ways Magufuli’s actions are not any different from
the many pronouncements Museveni made in 1986 – to buy furniture from Kawempe,
to rule for only four years, and to abandon the presidential jet. And many coup
makers in Africa have made them. None lasted a few years. Yet there are reforms
in Africa that have endured. And we can look at them to explain why.
The first generations of reforms were when NRM in Uganda
decided to abandon its Marxist ideas of state direction of the economy through
price and foreign exchange controls, barter trade, etc. in favour of policies
aimed at creating a free market economy and controlling inflation. There was a
lot of internal debate inside NRM pitting leftists against rightists.
Eventually, after back and forth negotiations, Museveni weighed down heavily on
the side of free market reforms and Uganda has not looked back.
The second generation of reforms was in post-genocide
Rwanda. They were not about policy but practice – the kinds of things Magufuli
is doing. They aimed to remove unnecessary government spending on official
cars, seminars and workshops, foreign trips etc. The RPF conducted internal
discussions with other political parties and then took the decisions for debate
in the cabinet of the coalition government. Once adopted, President Paul Kagame
led the way by cutting down on his convoy and then obliging all others to
follow suit. These reforms have held in Rwanda because they were not arbitrary
decisions of one self-righteous individual but because they were debated and
arrived at collectively.
The lesson is simple but fundamental. For reform to succeed
there must be buy-in by key stakeholders. Magufuli may be well meaning but he
is going about this the wrong way. It is possible he may stimulate resistance that
will halt his otherwise good efforts.
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