The Endurance of One-Party Dominance: The Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) Party and the Challenge of Democratizing the Tanganyika-Zanzibar Union

Abstract

The political Union between Tanganyika and Zanzibar (the Union) has remained as a unique Pan-African construct. Unlike other attempts that were aimed at political unifications in Africa such as the Ethiopia-Eritrea Federation 1952-1962; the Ghana-Guinea-Mali Union (Union of African States); Senegambia Confederation 1982-1989; which did not last, the Tanganyika-Zanzibar Union has now existed for over fifty years. These unification attempts in post-independent Africa were fraught with early challenges and failed to consolidate. Conjunctive irredentism and identity issues have been identified as some of the reasons for these fallouts. The Union in Tanzania has for five decades withstood multitudes of similar challenges. Tanzania’s long time ruling and dominant party, the Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) has been a key player in the state-building project. The Union was solemnized on 26 April 1964. The merger of Tanganyika’s independence party the Tanganyika African National Union (TANU) and Zanzibar’s revolutionary party the Afro-Shirazi Party (ASP) in 1977 to form CCM was an act of consolidating the Union. The merger was seen as a consecration of the Union and CCM has hitherto approached it as a sacrosanct entity. Questioning the Union has oftentimes been treated as sacrilege because it has been regarded as a national value and symbol of national unity and pride. However, there have been issues of Zanzibar’s waning sovereignty and discontents which have been the source of the Union instability over the years. Constitutional and political reforms aimed at addressing these discontents have yielded little success. This thesis set out to explore the influence of CCM’s one-party dominance and its role in democratizing the Union – contextually defined as the efforts at a more equitable and balanced Union. Dominant literature on the Union has inadequately captured the contextual interests and the impacts of one-party dominance in the democratization of the Union. Therefore, this study sought to introduce and utilize the concept of one-party dominance to explain both the challenges of democratizing the Tanganyika-Zanzibar Union as well as the endurance of the Union. By examining the Union sub-level peculiarities, this study advances the argument that the Union is a function of CCM one-party dominance. The study finds that CCM’s dominance cannot endure outside the Union. Further, the study finds that the use of memory of the Union has advanced CCM’s dominance. This thesis further explored the rise of emancipatory nationalism in Zanzibar as a challenge to CCM’s dominance. This thesis contributes to the scholarship of one-party dominance and emancipatory nationalism. While the scholarship of one-party dominance is universal, emancipatory nationalism has so far been advanced in Western liberal democracies (Catalonia, Scotland and Flanders). The implications of the findings of this thesis advance the interplay of trends in dominance and emerging anthropological explanations that challenge one-party dominance.