Last month Dr John Magufuli took office as the President of
the Republic of Tanzania after a hotly contested campaign against Edward
Lowassa, a defector from the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) party.
Whereas some observers held out that Lowassa had a real
chance of overturning the CCM’s half a century hold on power, Magufuli beat him
handily polling 58 percent of the votes.
Sworn in as president on November 5, Magufuli lost no time
in making his presence felt. Days into his presidency he visited Muhimbili
Hospital, a major referral hospital, and finding it in a deplorable state fired
the administrator and gave the staff days to get some vital equipment up and
running or risk going the same way as their boss.
He was not done yet.
He then slashed the budget for a celebrations for MPs and
used the savings to buy beds and mattresses for that same hospital.
"What some might have dismissed as kasigiri and thought would burn out as soon as it erupted were sorely disappointed...
Magufuli then took an axe to foreign travel trips for
officials, dictating that Tanzanians embassy staff will represent the country
abroad. The savings for this he has earmarked for social services.
Unfazed by the grumbling of government bureaucrats, Magufuli
questioned the wisdom of the paying public servants allowances for work they were
supposed to do anyway.
The coup de grace – until the next one, Magufuli scrapped
this year’s independence celebrations which fall on 9th December,
wondering how the country can spend millions on these celebrations when cholera
is running amok in some places. He has directed that instead Tanzanians will
engage in public cleaning of their surroundings.
And oh yes! He has also stopped the sending of Christmas
cards by government offices staring this festive season.
They may look like tokenism, even grand standing from afar,
but h they have succeeded in setting the tone of his presidency and sending out
the message that it will not be business as usual with the good doctor of
chemistry.
Two things have managed to swing the regional and
international spotlight on Magufuli.
People who know Magufuli are unsurprised by the devout
Catholic’s willing ness to overturn the status quo but even they express
surpise at the speed and extent of what he has done.
He has held several ministerial briefs under his predecessor
Jakaya Kikwete, including the lucrative works ministry, where some of his
contemporaries vouch for his clean reputation.
Magufuli is no political novice, after all you do not
capture for yourself the leadership of the CCM by being a wall flower, but the
explosion in social media means that his exploits were being broadcast in real
time to networks of thousands even millions finding its way across the world
before the TV bulletins, something that was impossible even five years ago.
"Of course it helped that he served as breath of fresh air into an ossified political landscape and played to an audience – around the region, used to government fat cats living first world lifestyles amidst their dehumanising poverty...
If anyone had any doubts about how social media can be a
game changer the Magufuli phenomenon has to have put those to rest.
Two things can happen.
Buoyed by the groundswell of support Magufuli can ride it to
do a much needed clean-up of Tanzania’s politics and carry the momentum to
introduce other unpopular measures, like the complete opening up to the East
African Community and the unlocking of this sleepy giants full potential.
Or he can succumb to the blow back from the rattled beneficiaries
of the status quo, who are undoubtedly burning the midnight candle to subvert
his “people’s revolution” and return things to business as usual.
On a purely sentimental basis I hope Magufuli beats back his
detractors and continues on his pro-people crusade, but I fear that the inertia
of Tanzanian bureaucracy, which is the slowest in the region anyhow, will bring
the bulldozer – a soubriquet he earned while for his indomitable spirit in the
face of obstacles in his previous ministries, to a grinding halt.
In the latter case I would love to be wrong. Time will tell.
