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| Title: | Minimum legal conditions to begin the process of democratisation in Tanzania |
| Author: | Shivji, Issa G. |
| Year: | 1990 |
| Periodical: | Eastern Africa Law Review |
| Volume: | 17 |
| Issue: | 2 |
| Period: | December |
| Pages: | 134-182 |
| Language: | English |
| Notes: | biblio. refs. |
| Geographic terms: | Tanzania East Africa |
| Subjects: | democracy multiparty systems law democratization freedom of information |
| Abstract: | In Tanzania, the debate on multipartyism has been carried on largely in the form of letters and features in local newspapers. Both historical experience and the current legal atmosphere in the country militate against any independent initiatives from below to further the debate. Historically, there was no public and open debate on the adoption of the one-party system in 1965, nor on the decision to adopt socialism and self-reliance in 1967. Those who subsequently questioned the social logic of socialism and the political credentials of its proponents were effectively silenced. The 1983 constitutional debate and the 1989-1990 accountability debate were both aborted. The accumulated experience of the past three decades has created a repressive political atmosphere, further exacerbated by the actually existing legal framework. Freedom of expression is gagged, notably through the Newspapers Act, 1976, and the Tanzania News Agency Act, 1976; freedom of organization curtailed (by law Tanzania is a one-party State, with a single workers trade union, and a single national cooperative union). It should also be noted that the process of democratization goes beyond the question of simply installing a multiparty system. It entails, at the very least, freedom of political activity, freedom of expression and freedom of organization. Notes, ref. |