Elections 2010: Social Media and Election Monitoring

The early report from Uchaguzi dot or dot tz* is hot off the press. Here is a quick glimpse at the accumulated efforts of citizen monitoring using the Ushahidi platform:

Looks like Dar is the hottest spot, but the other urbanities have really represented.

Check out the number of people who had a perfectly pleasant voting experience. Check out the number of Tanzanians who couldn't find their names on the voter roll. James Mbatia of NCCR-Mageuz0- who didn't get to vote- has some company.

In 2005, there was no Twitter. There was no 3G mobile phone network. The Tanzanian blogosphere was in it's infancy, and Ufisadi wasn't a household term yet. Look how far we've come. While every day is a good day to be Tanzanian, some days are admittedly better than others :)

If you want to keep track of events in realtime, may I recommend: TBC, ITV, Capital, StarTV, RadioOne, Idhaa ya Kiswahili (Deutsche Welle, the Beeb, VOA and Radio France International) and on the net: JamiiForums (with your grain of salt), Wanazuoni, Twitter hashtag Tanzania and the NEC website. Sorry I haven't linked those outlets, my net is slow so just use your noodle and try google.

Elections 2010: Seen Around Stone Town

I noticed walking around Zanzibar that the posters were telling a story. In Bongo, you can't look anywhere without His Grinning Beauteousness plastered all over the city in various 'warm and thoughtful' poses. Every. Hundred. Meters. But in Zanzibar...

This gentleman noticed me taking pictures a month ago (I wasn't as stealthy as I had hoped). He made sure to insert himself in the frame to direct my attention to the candidate of his choice whom he referred to reverently as 'our chairman, our beloved leader.' Where do we get our political terms from, Maoist China? Honestly.

I saw these gentlemen last week and stealthed a picture using the old 'I'm just texting, don't mind me' trick. It is very weird to see the Forces of Peace, Security and Stability in such number in Zanzibar.

Especially when there are guns involved. World Heritage Site, anyone? Check out the condition of the various posters.

Final Terms: "We need to keep loving one another."

First of all, my heartfelt condolences to those who lost friends and family in Kampala bomb attacks that took place during the World Cup Finals this past Sunday. This is the third big terrorist attack on a major East African city, after the 1998 bombings. Yesterday's Citizen had this to report on Museveni's first public reaction :

'Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has vowed to crush the militant Somali group al Shabaab group, which has claimed responsibility for last Sunday's twin bomb attacks, which killed 74 people in Kampala. "We are going to go on the offensive and go for all who did this in al areas, starting here." [...] President Museveni also appealed to Ugandans not to target the Somali community in the country, saying they had nothing to do with last Sunday's bombings. 'Some people may interpret the tragic events on Sunday, but Somalis living here are part of the system.'

We do need to keep loving one another, as Jay Kay said to parliament yesterday. Some things only get better with translation.

World Cup post-mortem? Not so much. Spain won. Okay. Africa... well, South Africa really... proved to the World what We (They) are Capable Of. I was impressed- I honestly thought there would be some trouble with crime but it was not so. I don't know what the SA authorities did but it worked! Zuma was on the tube yesterday talking to some talking head somewhere overseas and he hinted at the Olympics as the next South African target. High Five.

The election season has finally kicked off. Jay Kay has selected his running mate, Mohamed Gharib Bilal, an (old) soft-spoken scientist-turned politician and one-time Chief Minister of Zanzibar. Meanwhile, the other (old) soft-spoken scientist turned politician, Dr. Shein, is CCM's candidate for the Zanzibar Presidency, running against CUF's (old) candidate Maalim Seif Sharif Hamad. It's a gerontocratic Vice-Presidential-Chief-Ministerial Merry-Go-Round. No sign of Chadema presidential aspirations. The others? UDP, DP, TLP, NCCR-Mageuzi? Meh. Let's not even raise the specter of CCJ. This is going to be an one-horse race.

Of course, the real game is in the parliamentary and council elections. Jay Kay's address to the outgoing parliamentarians was... well, interesting. My Lady of the Crooked Smiles thinks he's shown signs of personal growth over the past five years. Teachers, eh. To me, it sounded like a bit of a cop-oyt. It's going to be very interesting to watch a couple of promising young(er) politicians handle their first time running, as well as keep an eye out for major upsets as greyheads get pushed out- hopefully- by some serious competition :) Will the coming Bunge contain more thinkers and doers and fewer sluggish, corrupt, entitled, ancient, ineffective, apathetic money-sinks? Hope so.

The Best Housekeeper in The World, meanwhile, is keeping me appraised of the shenanigans that local government is indulging in on the streets. She was barred from a 'rally' meeting the other day because the candidate was CCM and she isn't a card carrying member. Her neighbors who were card-carrying members attended the meeting and got 5000 TShs for their trouble- roughly three dollars. Le sigh. None of the opposition parties have resources to compete with such flagrant 'grassroots mobilization.'

Baptism.

It took us about two minutes to walk the wending inner streets of Mikocheni and arrive at the primary school. The room was nicely signposted, the government officials as warm and polite as one is likely to get. I got my picture taken after the nice lady told me to sit up straight and then adjusted my bra strap so it wouldn't show. Decorum. I asked the nice registration man if he was okay with me taking pictures too. He was nervous but he consented. People are kind to you when you tell them that it's your first time.

The classroom was peaceful and quiet, a civic cathedral where we all sat on the same narrow wooden pews that children would fidget on tomorrow. Someone had left a lesson on the greenboard in beautiful cursive. Kwa. Kwe. Kwi. Kwo. Kwu. It only took me ten minutes and a few questions to get inducted into the Tanzanian diocese of the Church of Electoral Democracy.

I was born in Mwanza City, Bugando Hospital, same as my four siblings. I will vote in Mikocheni, Kawe, Kinondoni- same parliamentary constituency as my three siblings and two parents*. I was handed yet another photo ID encased in hard plastic. Like so many of the best moments in life, it was wonderfully mundane.

Walking back home, the colors seemed brighter and the crows less annoying. This afternoon, I shall cook and dine with my favorite political operative and my oh-god-i-have-to-deal-with-government-hand-holder-in-chief to celebrate. While buying some brew, I asked my Duka Guy if he'd registered. He laughed and said he'd done that long ago. Everyone around me seems to have voted before, and I feel a bit silly being so terribly excited about this.

I can't wait. Have a blessed Sunday.

*That is where the similarities end. We have far too much fun twitting each other over political choices to sing from the same hymn sheet.

A Fine Romance, Part One: Lusting after His Hotness

If I had a thousand shillings for every man I have come across who has expressed a desire to run for elective office, I could afford a music system for my car by now. Come to think of it, maybe I should charge a thousand shillings to listen to guys tell me about their political aspirations. No charge at all for the women who confess to a desire for office: hell, I'll pay to hear about it!

Okay, now that I have gotten my feminist dig in, lets get to the crux: what motivates people to enter into formal politics? With each individual, how much of that political drive is based in vanity, a need to please, the craving for adulation, a true belief in public service, ambition, a desire for power, a quest for riches, idealism, a realistic understanding of individual agency? In brief: why the hell are they getting into the snake-oil business?

One thing that disappoints me about political commentary and discourse in my fair land is the fact that we ignore the complexities of the individuals playing the political game. It is limiting, since politicians, like regular humans, have been known to respond to more stimuli than bribes/and or a fixation with Nyerere-ist philosophy.

Case in point: those of us in the chattering probably know more about Barack Obama's daddy issues than we do about what makes Jay Kay twitch. We have a blind spot with our President. Where are the competing biographies on the 'Father of the Nation'- and I don't mean the polite official drivel about how great a dude he was. Where is the personality-mining on Mkapa, on Mwinyi? This is our contemporary history. If we don't respect it, we don't respect ourselves.

I love to observe incumbents struggle with the gap between their belief in how much power they have to change society, and the reality that social change is a hairy and fiendishly difficult beast to grapple- even for a head of state. Change for bad is easy. Change for good? Ha! Watching a leader struggle with complex problems (like genuine poverty alleviation) has got to be one of the best ways to judge a leader.

In 2005, Jay Kay blew in on an 80% victory magic carpet propelled by his charisma. Never mind that there was no viable alternative offered by the opposition: Kikwete literally seduced the Tanzanian electorate. For the first year or so of his presidency, the press- utterly infatuated- wrote about him with the devotion of a star-struck teenager in the throes of her first love. Critical faculties country-wide were shut down as we found that we could not adore him enough.

In spite of this ridiculous fervor, it was a pragmatic decision. Here was a guy who has spent his whole life working for The Establishment- and I don't mean in the shallow, self-serving way that currently passes for 'nationalism.' He radiates that tough-love, old-school, Tanzania-first kind of populism that we've been thirsting for after Mwinyi (too accommodating) and Mkapa (too aloof). He smartly manipulated us by appealing to our nostalgic hankering for a Nyerere-style Big Papa. So we flocked into his loving arms. Who else was gonna give us the man-of-the-people, hip, good times vibe that this 'young' candidate was promising? Charisma will get you everywhere.

But, this is politics. It was irresponsible of us to try and cannonize* him, hoping that he might have the god-like powers to banish the monsters in the closet: poverty, social differences, crime, corruption, the pain of daily human life. Just as it is irresponsible of us now to lash out at him for not being God: no chickens in every hand-basket, no total overhaul of a deeply corrupt system (which is only reflecting a social ill), no miraculous railroads all over the countryside... And so, the disenchantment that is borne out of unrealistic expectations- particularly visible in the fickle press- is as fierce and retributive as the anger of a jilted lover. I believe we can do better.

*Some folks are trying to get Nyerere sainted in the Catholic church. Really? I may be lapsed, but even I don't have the balls to cynically mingle the sacred and the profane in this manner.