Elections 2010 Lack of focus mars kikwete first term in office!

Rutashubanyuma · 2010-09-25T18:04:03+00:00

(By Rutashubanyuma Nestory- A public policy analyst based in Arusha.) If you ask most Tanzanians why did Kikwete run for presidency in 2005 few can answer that question with a sense of urgency. Even fewer will attest today they knew what he stood for before they deluged him with over eighty percent of cast votes! Apart from nursing and sating a personal, excruciating presidential ambition there is very little else one can pin as a calling to serve this nation. If you flip at election manifestos, CCM had made no secret that it was determined to maintain the status quo. That was hardly an individual quest identifiable to a CCM torch bearer. From the election slogan of Ari Mpya, Nguvu Mpya na Kasi Mpya the nettling query there had been a new verve for what? Or simplistically put, a new verve to take the nation where? With his five year term coming to a screeching halt there is no concrete evidence on ground to suggest anybody in the government understands his philosophy, and if there was any, in the first place. During the electioneering of 2005, voters were bamboozled to perceive with Kikwete on the drivers seat the nation would take a u-turn tack and that would be for our betterment. Hardly can anyone blame voters for hoping for a chimera when Ari Mpya was blended with a fizzy elation of Maisha bora Kwa kila Mtanzania. But it was in the Kikwete three and a half hours House inauguration speech that clarity was brought to the fore. In that homily, Kikwete revealed that he had embraced and would arrest every nook and cranny of our penury! That was shocking revelation given the diminutive nature of our GDP and one could least expect in a short five year term our hobbit sized government would tackle our entire misery. It was an intransigence to acknowledge the limitations of what a government of a begging nation can do to arrest a myriad of our national handicaps which should be acknowledged as Kikwetes glaring frailty: Overambitious agenda did him in! During his marathon campaign, he promised voters his government would deliver more than three thousand development projects. Todate, no member of Kikwete government can come forward and ascertain how many projects have been accomplished let alone how many more would remain a pipe dream come D-Day. This parse conveniently ignores the fact that education projects have been delivered by Mwananchi under the noose of state compelled duress beyond the social contract. At the moment, promises are hurled all over the place without accountability of failures to fulfill the past ones. No sooner after acquiring power overzealousness was the most conspicuous management style of an inchoate administration. The impression engraved on the minds of the ruled was the larger the size of the government the faster social ills would be mellowed! But apart from pampering a few proven minions with unmerited government senior positions there was nothing else to indicate government performance had improved for the better. When it came to the rule of law; a promise that went horrifyingly awry, was a severance of the spinal cord of the underworld. Few, uncoordinated gestures were pursued but the highly organized Underworld plagiarized the election slogan Ari Mpya.. and made it their own reminding an amateurish administration it was not up to the task. Then there was a gold rush to reclaim water sources from the pastoral communities. There he promised and delivered a loud vacuous declaration. I can safely say we are back at ground zero, there! With all his personal failings, Mkapa would be nostalgically remembered for curbing inflation from a two digit percentage points to a single digit one. Mkapas single digit inflation legacy has been thrown to the dogs by Kikwete under treacherous plea of Maisha bora kwa kila Mtanzania. Seldom can we achieve that collective contentment through swilling beyond our means. The runaway inflation; now stealthily groping vagaries of nature as a scapegoat, has wiped out all the gains of Mkapa economic agenda. Sadly, we are on a leash of a prodigal leader busier obfuscating his shortcomings! What an ephemeral legacy?

Thread starter Rutashubanyuma
Start date Sep 25, 2010

Rutashubanyuma

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Elections 2010 Lack of focus mars kikwete first term in office!

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