Fare thee well, Prez Mwinyi

Our neck of the woods, the Southern African Development Community region, last month lost two high-profile personalities, a sitting head of State and a long-since-retired one. While the former, Namibian President Hage Geingob, had significant name recognition in this country, many would battle to tell who Ali Hassan Mwinyi was.

Mwinyi was President of Tanzania from 1985 to 1995. Before that, he held numerous Ministerial positions between 1970 and 1983, before being appointed his country’s Vice President and President of Zanzibar in 1984. For those whose knowledge of Africa is rather woolly, Zanzibar is the Indian Ocean archipelago that merged with what was then Tanganyika in 1964 to become the United Republic of Tanzania.

Tanzania’s charismatic founding President and Mwinyi’s predecessor, Julius Nyerere, was a well-meaning socialist. But his policy of ujamaa – which was based on collective farming and the ‘villagisation’ of the countryside and also called for the nationalisation of banks and industry as well as increased levels of self-reliance at individual and national level – did more harm than good.

When Nyerere stepped down in 1985 – voluntarily, it must be said – farm productivity, which was supposed to have increased through collectivisation, had declined to less than 50% of what was achieved on independent farms. Moreover, banking and industry had been crippled and transport networks were decrepit, following decades of neglect. The result of all this was that Tanzania had become one of Africa’s poorest countries, dependent on foreign aid.

Enter Mwinyi. When Nyerere handpicked him as his successor, not much confidence was inspired that this change of the guard would translate into a change in the country’s fortunes. This wasn’t unreasonable scepticism, considering that Nyerere remained leader of the governing party, Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM). Many were unconvinced Mwinyi would have free rein. But he proved to be his own man – and a breath of fresh air. He moved fast to remove restrictions on private enterprise and eased bottlenecks on imports. For this, he earned the nickname Mzee Ruksha, Swahili for Mr Permission.

He also repaired relations with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, which had become strained.

This was a clear departure from Nyerere pet socialist project, which Mwinyi would criticise in his memoir years later: “That development model did not translate into the best economic outcomes we had all anticipated. Tanzania’s economy was facing a number of challenges which were later identified to be mostly the result of our economic model, thus demonstrating the need to reform the model.”

During his first term, from 1985 to 1990, Mwinyi launched a three-year Economic Recovery Programme, which led to a 3.9% yearly average gross domestic product growth rate, up from 1% for the period 1980 to 1985. There were also upticks of 4.8% and 2.7% in agricultural production and manufacturing output respectively.

Mwinyi’s reform agenda was not confined to economic matters. He opened up the democratic space as well. This included permitting independent local, regional and international media to operate in the country again, since a ban imposed in 1967.

It was also during Mwinyi’s tenure as Tanzania’s President that opposition political parties were allowed to contest against CCM. A leader of Chadema, the country’s main opposition party, lauded him for this when news of his death from lung cancer at the age of 98 broke on February 29: “Mzee Mwinyi brought important changes in Tanzanian politics by enabling an environment where citizens can fully participate in the political process.”

The Presidencies of Nyerere and Mwinyi hold important lessons for Africa. First, after realising he had messed up big time with his socialist experiment, Nyerere did a mea culpa and stepped down without being prodded to do so. Second, as Nyerere’s successor, Mwinyi was very much the new broom that sweeps clean. This is sorely missed in our politics.

I’m sure it’s every South African’s wish that, if a new President is elected in May, he or she must be our own Mwinyi. If President Ramaphosa is re-elected, then Cyril 2.0 must be much better than his rather underwhelming Cyril 1.0 incarnation.