Dar Mayoral election: Minister finally seeing sense

It's after the Minister of State in the President’s Office responsible for Regional Administration and Local Governments, George Simbachawene fixed the deadline e for the mayoral election as March 25.

Setting a proper date and in the next two weeks implies that the minister is prepared and ready to accept the most likely result of conducting the polls at that moment.

That is different from the city administration or the regional authorities, who postponed the poll indefinitely, as preparing to win it is quite difficult.

That was the only reason why the city authorities kept fielding the police, concocting court injunctions and seeking to hold in remand prison sufficient elected officials like members of Parliament or ward councilors, for a while.

When and if they could get ten of them out of the way, and impede one or two others from attending, the ruling party would have credible chances of winning that poll.

We are tempted to say that if the fourth phase government was still in place, or the third phase, the matter would have been allowed to crawl for as long as it is necessary, that is, until the ruling party succeed to raise a quorum and retains a supposed mandate to govern the capital.

There is a certain sense of law and order, if perhaps one may call it a sense of decency in this administration, which has enabled the minister to cross party narrow mindedness and call and end to the procrastination.

The CCM plot to have some MPs and councilors in jail and then call a snap poll set the stage for a huge mess.

They say all is well that ends well, so there is hope that finally the voters’ wish will be respected and city MPs and councilors will now be able to vote in a mayor reflecting that mandate.

It will also be a learning moment for the ruling party, to start working with the opposition on more equal terms, not specializing in providing ‘education’ on how things are done, that opposition elected representatives shall always be upstarts, beginners or novices.

There are scores of examples of wards and district councils where things became better after opposition took charge of things, so authorities shouldn’t sow panic, creating fear.

The city of Dar es Salaam has traditionally been twice the size of other regional centres combined, and since district and municipal councils upcountry run budgets of up to one billion shillings, one can understand why CCM finds it hard to let this particular ‘bone’ be taken away.

They hence resort to using all sorts of Machiavellian techniques where the end justifies the means, and the first item on the table, or governance agenda that is thrown away is moral rectitude, decency.

It is to fight with bare hands, gloves (of normative principles) removed as this would impede the ruling party to take the mayor’s seat.

It is evident that this excessive pursuit of privilege to take control of the budget of the vast metropolis isn’t for the wider interests of the public but regional and upper level CCM bigwigs, and a few acolytes in the business community and of course their other associates and friends.

That way, things have to be done by force every time the opposition has to contest this or that, and it becomes a culture of arresting opposition leaders each passing day, a trend that serves nothing but denies the public from being served by the leaders they elelected.