The panel particularly raised concern over the use of the word 'dictatorship,' that it isn't an appropriate addition to the political vocabulary, since there is a wide field in which such activity is unfettered. Only public meetings on national issues are proscribed.
Some have pointed out that the ruling party has been conducting meetings or even rallies without being bothered by the police, as was the case in Lindi lately, in which case there are double standards on 'work' rather than 'politics' as set out in the presidential fiat.
Yet there is a catch to that aspect, namely the motive underlying the blanket ban on activist rallies, where the president said "don't stand in my way," in which case if one calls a rally to support the president's effort no objection arises. In that case only CCM is likely to do so.
What is evident in the decision, and in the manner of its deliberation where representatives from the police force, the Attorney General as well as the ruling party were absent, is how institutions work.
While the opposition needs arbitration on the issue, law enforcement institutions don't need to be directed by this or that commission on how to act, as they have an employer, an appointing authority. If one seeks to reverse the order, let those forces seek audience with the president about it; commissions can't order the president.
It is hence evident that the order is tolerable before major national institutions as that is the willingness of the president at this stage, that this is how he wishes to work, so as to deliver on his promises.
Listening to the president, one gets the idea that to him politics is to make promises to the people on what one will deliver, in which case the opposition has no more promises it can make to the population at the moment. It is a question of another election.
The president knows like everyone else what the constitution says in relation to meetings and conducting of other political activities, but he needs legroom, unfettered field of mobilisation and supervision to deliver.
It is of utmost importance to him that the people listen to him instead of being distracted by all sorts of voices contesting for the public ear, and all too often pushing this or that destructive program for public attention. The question thus isn't to find out whether the president is right or wrong in legal terms, but in the politics of it.
The president is adamant that development activity will be aided rather than impeded if the public directs its attention to realising goals set out in various sectors and administrative regions and districts.
He believes that the public will lose little or nothing if they don't keep hearing about Lugumi or UDA contracts and parliamentary walkouts after an answer is delivered by this or that minister. And since he has shown that he means to change things and not 'business as usual' mode of governing, the public is willing to give him space.
All this doesn't suggest that the president's policy trajectory shall deliver the goods he wishes to put to the public, but rather he expects to deliver if only his attention isn't distracted by opposition voices.
And since there was a huge campaign in the pre-2015 electoral period to eliminate from the CCM list of five nomination candidates some voices bred in the 'business as usual' field of politics, with some changes, the public should not be surprised by the current shifts, It's an issue of each one being on full alert to deliver; little else besides.
Listening to pundits like Ali Mufuruki, for many years chairman of the Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) round-table, one notices some disquiet on policies that seem to be systematically hostile to the private sector.
That is something the president will have to evaluate on the basis of reports given to him by each cabinet minister, and on the basis of results on the ground. It isn't via an opposition drive that policy is corrected, as they don't focus on policy but this or that scandal, plenty of it little but make-believe, to obtain political mileage.
The president was for instance criticised by the opposition for retaining Prof. Sospeter Muhongo in the same position he resigned earlier, and made an effort to bring back Permanent Secretary Eliakim Maswi but something went wrong. The reason is that no escrow theft existed but government paid a debt.
It is this sort of opposition machinations which threw the cabinet of ministers off balance and the country on the verge of revolt, as opposition MPs as well as scores of ruling party legislators chose to believe that the government can't place cash in the central bank solely to pay a debt.
Clever politician-advocates even manufactured a second ICSID case that was unresolved, something that then President Jakaya Kikwete rejected outright in low tones. He said that for seven years TANESCO nursed a pseudo-dispute, not taking it to any tribunal.
The trouble with the media presentation of the issues is that they don't quite fathom how far certain quarters in the government and in the ruling party are tired with unsavory parliamentary machinations for interests opposed to government decisions in some key areas.
Ex-Speaker Samuel Sitta told the government bluntly that if it buys the Dowans Inc. 100MW plant they would meet in the legislature - and the government refrained from doing that, a victory for what is usually called democracy. As they say, 'the rest is history,' and JPM must frankly have detested it.
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