Ghent University Faculty of Arts and Philosophy Academic year 2015/2016 Ethnicity, Voting and the Promises of the Independence Movement in Tanzania: The Case of the 2010 General Elections in Mwanza Mrisho Mbegu Malipula Dissertation presented in the fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Comparative Science of Culture Promoter: Prof. Dr. Koenraad Stroeken i ACKNOWLEDGEMENT This dissertation is the result of research work I embarked upon since December 2011 when I secured registration at Ghent University to pursue PhD studies. The dissertation could not have been completed without constructive contributions of many individuals and institutions with whom I interacted in the course of my scholarly endeavour. Space does not allow me to thank by name the many individuals who contributed to the making of this dissertation. To all of them, I wish to express with great humility my heartfelt gratitude for their academic, material and moral support. However, there are always a few people, who because of their extraordinary contribution must be acknowledged by name. Given the limitation of space, I hope I will be forgiven for mentioning a few individuals and institutions whose support both academic and otherwise contributed immensely to the completion of this challenging task. First and foremost, sincere gratitude is extended to my Promoter Prof. Dr. Koenraad Stroeken to whom I am indebted for much of my intellectual understanding of the scholarly field of ethnicity and voting. Koenraad’s encouragement, patience, genuine criticism and guidance throughout my long research journey made this dissertation take the shape and content that it has. His critical, detached and steady leadership has taught me a great deal in the academic world and for this I am highly indebted to him. The members of my dissertation committee also deserve special acknowledgement for their contribution to making this work successful. These include: Dr Annelies Verdoolaege of the Department of African Languages and Cultures, Ghent University for commenting on my chapters and challenging me to excel in my PhD project from start to finish. I also want to pay tribute to Dr. Patrick Vander Weyden of FocusUP for co-initiating the research in the early stages, and to Prof. Dr. Geert Castryck of the Department of History, Ghent University, Prof. Peter Kopoka from the Department of Political Science and Public Administration, Dodoma University and Prof. Auralia Kamuzora from the Department of Economics, Mzumbe University, for jumping in at the last minute to offer brilliant feedback as external readers before my dissertation defence. Finally, I would like to thank Dr. Mangi Ezekiel, Dr. Haidari Misafi and Dr. Athanas Ngalawa who took their time to go through, and make comments on the raw drafts of several chapters. I am greatly ii honoured to have had the opportunity to discuss my work with all of these distinguished academics. Equally, I wish to extend heartfelt appreciation to all faculty members, administrative staff and students whom I met and worked with at Ghent University. In the same vein, I wish to extend special thanks to the Tanzania-Ghent Community for their academic and social support. I feel indebted to mention that while at Ghent; the community made me feel home away from home. It was particularly so, when I felt like speaking Swahili and sharing Tanzania’s delicacies. They were like my brothers and sisters from another mother. Their academic and social support during the entire course of my studies helped me a lot to settle in Belgium and smoothly write this piece of academic work. My wife Habiba Ramadhani Saidi and our lovely daughters Halima, Rehema and Mkejina deserve a particular paragraph of most solemn gratitude for enduring my complicated work schedule while researching and writing this dissertation. My immediate family has contributed immensely to the success of this dissertation, in the same way as it has, whenever I chase a dream. I therefore wish to thank these four wonderful females for their endless encouragement, support and love. Certainly, this project could not have been a reality without their wholehearted support and assistance. Distinctive moral and material support accorded to me by my close relatives and friends do also warrant recognition. In this vein, I wish to thank my sister Tolonge, brothers Mohamed and Roy; friends Tano, Miraji, Mau, Moses, Muganda, Lucy, Felister and Yassin. I also wish to recognise the invaluable contribution of Godfrey Ndashau who assisted me in collecting data in Ilemela and Misungwi. Special thanks are extended to Mohamed Ghasia for assisting me in printing, binding and eventually submitting this dissertation for examination purposes. Equally, I would like to extend many thanks to Prof. Dr. Felix Kaputu for proof reading this dissertation. I am forever grateful to all of them. Lastly, but not least, in a very profound way, I wish to register my sincere appreciation for the support I received from both Ghent University, Belgium and the Mzumbe University, Tanzania throughout the data collection and dissertation writing process. The author’s enrolment in the PhD programme at Ghent University was made possible by his employer-Mzumbe University. The iii candidate has also benefitted from grants from other institutions, namely the VLIR (UOS) Short Research Grant that funded the author’s three month stay in Belgium during the proposal writing stage, and Ghent University Special Research Fund for Doctoral Scholarship (BOF) for candidates from developing countries that funded the author’s two years stay in Belgium. I wish to conclude by exonerating the individuals and institutions acknowledged in this section from all inaccuracies and shortcomings that may be found in this dissertation. All deficiencies are my responsibility and mine alone. iv DEDICATION This dissertation is dedicated to my beloved parents Mbegu Said Malipula and Rehema Mrisho Kapara, who did not live long enough to see their son grow to accomplish this significant academic milestone. My parents’ love, encouragement, dedication to education and industrious sacrifice inspired me to undertake an intellectual journey to the highest academic diploma that a University can offer –PhD. v ABSTRACT This dissertation explores the influence of ethnicity on determining voters’ choices in Tanzania. The issue of explaining ethnicity and voting in Tanzania is puzzling. The puzzle stems from the fact that Tanzania is less ethnically politicised compared to most African states, despite being ethnically diverse with over 120 ethnic groups, sharing the colonial history and an ongoing anxiety about competitive politics and liberal economics breeding ethnic salience in voting. The overriding literature on influences of ethnicity on voting in Africa revolves around the paradigms of ethnic structure and neo-patrimonial or hybrid systems. Whereas the concept of ethnic structure contends that salience of ethnicity in voting is determined by the ability of ethnic groups to form a minimum winning coalition (MWC) in elections, the neo-patrimonial and hybrid schools explain the same from Africa’s presumed traditional primordialism – as opposed to legal-rational institutions of governance (LRIs) or historically grown values preventing ethnic voting. The assumption of ethnic motivations and the reference to traditional structures has long concealed the role of shared history, political thoughts and innovative practices in Tanzania’s management of ethnicity, particularly in voters’ choices in elections. Such backdrop warranted exploration of an alternative analytical framework. This study developed an analytic narrative method that mainly relied on interviews with privileged witnesses as well as ordinary voters (65). The fundamental factor, we established, in explaining ethnicity’s low salience in voters’ choices in Tanzania has been the Promises of the Independence Movement (PsIM), namely a political imaginary about realising and enhancing promises of national unity (PNU), equitable distribution of national resources (EDNR) and peace. The PsIM in sum created a nationalist political culture against ethnic polarisation and salience in politics capable of sustaining low salience of ethnicity in voting for 50 years after independence. Based on the interviews, we reject the neo-patrimonial theory and hybrid schools and brand them as inadequate tools for understanding the significance of ethnicity on determining voters’ choices in Tanzania. The rejection is predicated on the fact that the Tanzanian case does not support the primary tenets of the theory in divulging the influences of ethnicity on voting as explained above. Ideals deduced from a nationalist political culture as embedded in the PsIM, informed legal rational rules and institutions, values as well as experiences that militate against the salience of ethnicity on determining electorates’ choices. On this basis, we can give credit to, but also critically examine, the indigenous political thoughts informed by African political thought and practices that determine voting practices. vi ABSTRACT Dit proefschrift onderzoekt de invloed van etniciteit op het bepalen van keuzes van kiezers in Tanzania. Het verklaren van etniciteit bij stemgedrag is ingewikkeld en verrassend in Tanzania. Het verrassende effect komt doordat Tanzania minder etnisch gepolitiseerd is dan de meeste andere Afrikaanse landen, ondanks het feit dat Tanzania een zeer etnisch divers land is, met meer dan 120 etnische groepen. Verder deelt