Previous page | New search |
The free AfricaBib App for Android is available here
Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Challenges for the opposition and democratisation in Tanzania: a view from the opposition |
Authors: | Ewald, Jonas Wohlgemuth, Lennart |
Year: | 2012 |
Periodical: | Africa Development: A Quarterly Journal of CODESRIA (ISSN 0850-3907) |
Volume: | 37 |
Issue: | 2 |
Pages: | 63-95 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | Tanzania |
Subjects: | democratization multiparty systems opposition parties politicians |
About person: | Ibrahim Lipumba |
External links: | https://www.ajol.info/index.php/ad/article/view/87524 https://www.jstor.org/stable/afrdevafrdev.37.2.63 |
Abstract: | In the period after 1990, a massive return to liberalized forms of politics has taken place in Africa, which were largely centred on the dismantling of one-party regimes and military-led or dominated governments, the embrace of a multiparty political framework, the introduction of independent media, the restoration of some basic rights and freedoms, and the convening of multi-party elections. This development was so widespread that it was seen by many observers as the beginning of Africa's second liberation. Potential gains to the people from the liberalization of national political spaces were undermined since the 1980s by the conditions set by outside suppliers of necessary resources, combined with internal challenges in terms of weak institutions, civil society and media as well as lack of a tradition of multiparty democracy and general poverty. Matters appear to have been worsened by the fact that in many African countries the promise which the opposition once represented as the bearer of hope and aspirations has substantially faded away. Several factors have contributed to weaken and, in some cases, discredit the opposition in much of Africa's ongoing experience with multiparty politics. This article examines how the situation in Tanzania has evolved over the past 17 years of multi-party development. This is done mainly on the basis of interviews with Ibrahim Lipumba, leader of one of Tanzania's major opposition parties, the Civic United Front (CUF or Chama Cha Wananchi). Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. in English and French. [Journal abstract] |