{UAH} Allan/Gook/Gwokto/Pojim/WBK; Plenty of lessons for Kenya in the good, bad and ugly sides of Tanzania’s election
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The election in Tanzania on Sunday will be the most important in the country's history partly because it will also be the first that anybody outside Tanzania has paid attention to.
There is much to admire and also plenty to criticise in the way the campaign in the neighbouring country has gone.
The most obvious is the question of ethnicity. The two contenders, Edward Lowassa and John Magufuli, certainly draw more enthusiasm in some regions than others.
But ethnic affiliation is not the overwhelming consideration for voters that it is in many other parts of Africa.
When Lowassa went campaigning in Mwanza, where Magufuli's ethnic group is dominant, the crowd was so large and overwhelming the rally had to be pushed forward by a day.
Imagine that happening on a Kenyatta visit to Kisumu or at an Odinga rally in Nyeri.
The fact ethnicity is not a crucial question for voters has forced the two campaigns to run on a platform of issues with both competing to make ever more rosy promises to the electorate.
The campaign has also largely been peaceful, with supporters and opponents of the various parties mingling with few ugly incidents reported.
When Kenyans shake off the burden of excessive focus on the candidate's last names, they, too, might have mature election campaigns and fewer people will suffer heart attacks or ponder suicide over election results.
One thing Tanzania needs to enter the modern age about is election management.
The draft constitution, which was rejected by the ruling party, had proposed far-reaching electoral reforms including the appointment of an independent electoral commission and its insulation from the presidency.
CAUSE FOR ALARM
As things stand, Tanzania's election will be run roughly along the lines in which Kenya's elections were conducted in the 1980s.
The government will essentially manage the entire process, which has caused alarm in the opposition ranks.
There are disputes over whether results will be announced at the polling station or not and an opposition plan to station supporters 200m away from polling centres to prevent ballot stuffing has been met with warnings that the police will not tolerate this.
The recent sacking and replacement of several electoral commission officials by President Jakaya Kikwete has not helped to calm matters.
Zanzibar, in particular, is on edge because the opposition there claims the state is determined to ensure only one outcome.
In terms of setting up an electoral system that is not run by the state, Tanzania has much to learn from other democracies on the continent.
At the end of the day, the country faces two reasonable, accidental and contrasting choices.
John Magufuli is a beneficiary of the vicious wrangling within the top ranks of the CCM, which saw Kikwete decide to lock Lowassa out of the nomination race.
In turn, Lowassa's delegates rejected Kikwete's favoured candidate, Foreign Affairs minister Bernard Membe, in favour of Magufuli.
But Magufuli has paradoxically run on a platform, which seems to attack the CCM record, promising to tackle graft and the inertia which some say has marked the Kikwete years and, at least rhetorically, he seems like he might be an improvement on what has come before.
ELECTION OUTCOME
Lowassa is a more complicated figure.
He is, in effect, the anti-Nyerere; promising to wake the country up, force civil servants to work harder and help the country achieve its vast potential.
Lowassa, easily the country's most popular politician despite the well-known accusations of graft that have marked his political career and the questions about the source of his wealth, would have won handsomely if he had bagged the CCM ticket.
Outside the system, the election outcome will be more open to question, but Lowassa would clearly be an improvement on Kikwete because, if Tanzania opens up and thrives, the region will, too.
It is good to go into an election in which there is uncertainty about the outcome, something for which Kenya and Somaliland alone in the Horn of Africa were known for before this Tanzanian election.
Uncertainty as to who will take office in an election means that rulers are more responsive to the needs of their people and the worry that they might be replaced by the opposition keeps them awake at night.
Whatever the outcome, Tanzania will never be the same again, which is a good thing.
Democracy is two Wolves and a Lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed Lamb disputing the results.
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