However, in the shadows of these laudable activities
the president has demonstrated a worrying authoritarian inclination to repress
dissent and reject institutional checks and balances.
It is therefore important to deconstruct Tanzania’s
“Magufuli miracle”, and to reflect more critically on the capacity of populist
presidents to promote development and democracy in Africa. If history is any
guide, the overwhelming popularity that Magufuli enjoys today is unlikely to
last.
From the start, Magufuli has positioned himself as a
dynamic populist. Positioning himself as an anti-elite figure on the side of
the ordinary people, he moved to slash government waste, cutting foreign travel
and diverting money from the inauguration ceremony for MPs to pay for hospital
beds.
At the same time, he announced a war on corruption, promised a crackdown
on big businessmen and tax avoiders, and fired a number of civil servants said
to be underperforming in one way or another.
Many of these policies have
improved the quality of life for ordinary Tanzanians in demonstrable ways. A
directive to the state-owned energy company to reduce fees and tariffs, for
example, has put money back into citizens’ pockets.
We shouldn’t overlook these achievements. Under
previous administrations, corruption was so pervasive it undermined the
provision of basic public services.
Moreover, it had become clear the ruling
party was not capable of reforming itself. As Hazel Gray argued in a recent
article in African Affairs, the divisions within Chama Cha Mapinduzi,
and the inability of any one faction or leader to exert effective central
control, undermined the capacity of the government to get a grip on spoils
politics.
CHANGE PICTURE
President Magufuli’s rise to power promises to change
this picture, in part because of his willingness to lead by example, and in
part because of his determination to get the job done by operating outside of
official structures. It is therefore unsurprising Magufuli’s approval ratings
are the envy of presidents around the world — 96 per cent according to a mobile
phone survey of 1,813 respondents conducted in June this year.
These figures
may be inflated — the methodology of the survey was controversial — but they
reflect the public’s belief that the president is doing a good job.
In large part, this seems to be driven by the fact
that ordinary citizens feel that a number of key institutions are performing
better under the new government.
The vast majority of citizens (85 per cent)
say the performance of the Tax Revenue Authority has improved, with similar
results for schools (75 per cent), police stations (74 per cent), the courts
(73 per cent), healthcare (72 per cent) and water access (67 per cent).
Perhaps
most tellingly, almost all of those surveyed (95 per cent) agreed that
government officials and employees had become more accountable and responsive.
In this sense Magufuli has not just delivered a
significant blow to the prevailing culture of corruption, he has also started
to rebuild public confidence in the capacity of the state to deliver, which is
a critical first step to building a more effective social contract.
The main problem with populism is that the early gains
secured by leaders like Magufuli are rarely sustained.
In the African context, populists often begin with a
burst of energy, attacking corruption and promising political (and often
constitutional) reform.
The response from both domestic and international
audiences is typically high praise, which serves to both consolidate the
position of the leader and embolden them. But this often results in populists
overreaching, attempting to deliver impossible gains in part because they have
started to believe their own political theatre.
Where this occurs, the final act of a populist’s
career is often characterised by a desperate attempt to complete what they
started amidst falling support, culminating in a very public, and often
dramatic, fall from grace.
NEGATIVE CONSEQUENCES
This process can have negative consequences for both
democracy and development. As I was recently reminded by Nicolas van de Walle,
the John S Knight Professor of International Studies at Cornell University, in
a democracy it is not enough for the outcome to be fair, the process needs to
be fair also. When it comes to democracy, a fair process is often understood to
include open elections, inclusive governance, and respect for the rule of law.
The problem with populism is that leaders rarely
follow due process. Instead, they build reputations that are explicitly based
on their willingness to break down institutional barriers in order to achieve
their goals. Magufuli’s approach exemplifies this tendency. His nickname, the
“Bulldozer”, plays on exactly this claim to fame: It was earned when he was
responsible for driving a project to build roads across the country but now
refers just as much to his reputation as a leader who, when he faces obstacles,
smashes his way through them.
In other words, populist government is usually a “you
need to break eggs to make an omelette” kind of politics. The problem is that
it is rarely just one or two eggs that get broken. It is hard to see this at
the start of a populist’s time in office, because the known failings of
previous governments, and the popularity of their actions, mask the limitation
of their strategies. But in time the refusal to follow or strengthen official
rules hollows out institutions, weakening the system of checks and balances and
so leaving the political system more open to abuse.
This is what happened in
Zambia, where President Michael Sata’s idiosyncratic populism put in power a
party that has weakened the electoral commission, harassed the opposition, and
failed to reduce corruption.
SIMILAR PATH
Magufuli is following a similar path. Many of his most
celebrated acts, such as dismissing corrupt or ineffective government
employees, did not follow due process. Instead, institutional rules for
reviewing performance and removing staff were ignored in favour of presidential
directives.
Similarly, many of his most eye-catching reforms were announced
with little or no prior discussion with his own party. Thus, like Sata, they
are only likely to last while the president remains in office and retains his
high popularity.
Significantly, the new Tanzanian president has
demonstrated some worrying authoritarian tendencies. The first evidence of this
was his willingness to endorse the decision to annul the elections for the
Zanzibari President and House of Representatives, which the government is
widely assumed to have lost. Although the initial decision was made before he
took office, Magufuli’s decision to uphold it, and to push ahead with new polls
in the face of an opposition boycott, drew criticism from both rival political
leaders and the international community.
Despite this, some commentators were tempted to
dismiss Magufuli’s actions this on the basis that the politics of Zanzibar are
distinctive and elections on the island have often been deeply problematic.
When viewed in this light, it was possible to excuse Magufuli on the basis that
he was only doing what his predecessors had done before, and that had only just
taken office and could not be expected to resolve an intractable problem like Zanzibar
in his first year in office.
However, developments on the mainland have followed in
a similar vein. Opposition rallies have been prohibited, protestors have been
tear gassed, FM radio stations have been closed, and both civil society groups
and media outlets have complained about government censorship harassment.
Although Magufuli subsequently qualified the ban on opposition rallies
following domestic and international pressure, allowing MPs to hold events in
their own constituencies, it is clear that the president is no democrat.
WORTH SACRIFICING
One possible response to this point – and a response
that I have received a number of times during discussions of this issue over
social media – is to argue that in some cases it is worth sacrificing democracy
for development.
After all, is it not better that women can access maternal
care under a leader who does not play by the rules of the game than to go
without under a committed democrat? But in reality this is a false trade off,
because in the long-run efforts to promote development and to fight corruption
will not be successful unless they strengthen the institutions of the state.
Stopping corruption by sacking officials in an ad
hoc manner and making decisions on the spur of the moment may look dynamic
and effective, but in reality it exacerbates the problem.
At root, corruption
occurs because institutional checks and balances are not sufficient to prevent
individuals from abusing their positions. Dealing with this by further
undermining official processes ignores the heart of the problem and actually
leaves institutions more, not less, vulnerable to manipulation.
Again, the experience of Sata is instructive. Many of
the studies that have been conducted of his time in public office, whether at
the Ministry of Health or the Presidency, have concluded that although Sata did
not steal much himself, the way in which he broke down institutional checks and
balances facilitated corruption by others. In this way, populist
anti-corruption measures served to facilitate looting.
This, ultimately, is the true tragedy of populism in
Africa. Although populist leaders often start well, they rarely sustain either
democracy or development.
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