Tanzania loves its new anti-corruption president. Why is he
shutting down media outlets?
By Ruth Carlitz and Constantine Manda
By Ruth Carlitz and Constantine Manda
Tanzania’s new President Magufuli has been given a comic
Twitter hashtag, #WhatWould MagufuliDo?, after introducing radical government
cutbacks just days into the job. He even banned government Christmas cards to
cut back on costs.
Tanzania’s President John Pombe Magufuli strode into office
in November promising to reduce corruption, cut wasteful spending and improve
public services. These initiatives are welcome in the East African nation,
which, while seen as a bastion of political stability in an at-times volatile
region, consistently ranks low on human development and high on graft. But
Magufuli’s government imposed new restrictions on the media recently, and
brought that commitment into question.
Magufuli’s popularity ballooned when he canceled expensive
independence-day celebrations in December and instead encouraged citizens to
come together and clean the streets. Some citizens thought that Magufuli
getting his hands dirty picking up trash symbolized his promise to tackle
corruption, which may have been his intention.
Tanzanians and other close observers started applying
Magufuli’s thrift to their own lives, asking #WhatWouldMagufuliDo – and posting
the hilarious results on Twitter. But the hashtag’s meaning has shifted since
last week, when his government started restricting the media. There’ve been media bans in
Tanzania before — but many expected better from Magufuli.
The first move came on Jan. 15, when Nape Nnauye, Tanzania’s
new information minister, announced a permanent ban on the printed weekly Mawio
(a Kiswahili-language newspaper). The government banned Mawio for
“inflammatory” reporting. Its publisher and managing editor said the ban shows
the government can’t bear criticism.
Days later, the Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority
(TCRA) – the agency that regulates the country’s communications and
broadcasting sectors – announced a three-month suspension of six television and
21 radio stations if they failed to pay license fees. Within a day of TCRA’s
announcement, 15 of the 20 radio stations and one of the six television
stations had paid their required dues.
Civil society activists in the country cried foul, saying
the suspensions of those that did not pay infringed on the public’s right to
information. There’s a widespread feeling that Tanzania’s government often
applies rules and regulations selectively, upping enforcement primarily when it
feels threatened.
How watching more TV shapes political attitudes and
participation in Tanzania
There’s some reason to conclude that the government is
shutting down broadcasting because it wants to ban criticism. We say that based
in part on our research. One of us (Carlitz) examined media exposure and
political attitudes in an ongoing project with Columbia political scientist
Johannes Urpelainen. Looking at two waves of the Tanzania National Panel
Survey, we found that more consumption of media is associated with more political
participation.
What’s more, when Tanzanians start watching more TV, their
approval ratings of national politicians tend to fall.
That’s consistent with decades of scholarship on U.S.
politics, which suggests that information, awareness, and a sense of political
efficacy are key in prompting political participation. Reading, listening to,
or watching the news doesn’t just increase people’s awareness of politics. It
can also give them confidence in their ability to make a difference — thus
encouraging them to get more publicly involved.
And if more media exposure is linked to more active citizens
who are less happy with national leadership, then government limits on the news
media make perfect strategic sense. Media suppression is a tried and tested method
employed by dominant party regimes to remain in power. Magufuli’s government
could be protecting against further erosion of public support for the ruling
party, Chama cha Mapinduzi (CCM), which has dominated Tanzanian politics since
independence in 1961.
A clear majority of citizens have supported the CCM’s
continued hold on power. Despite predictions that the 2015 election would be
unprecedentedly close, Mr. Magufuli won 58 percent of the vote, while his main
challenger, Edward Lowassa, got only 40 percent.
Still, Magufuli’s margin of victory was the smallest that
any CCM candidate has ever had. In 2005, Jakaya Kikwete took office with more
than 80 percent of the vote, compared to about 12 percent for runner-up Ibrahim
Lipumba of the Civic United Front (CUF) party. The 2010 elections were closer,
but CCM’s Kikwete won reelection comfortably with 63 percent of the vote,
compared with 27 percent for Chadema’s Willibrod Slaa.
The ruling party has advantages that help it stay in power
CCM is not in the business of stealing elections. It’s
stayed on top partly because the ruling party has advantages in its dealings
with the media and the opposition. Tanzania’s constitution provides for freedom
of speech — but it does not specifically guarantee freedom of the press.
Tanzania’s independent press has been increasingly bold in covering government
corruption, but has often been muzzled by government media bans.
Click here for more information!
For example, in 2008 the minister of information banned the
independent newspaper MwanaHalisi for three months after it published an
article implying that then-President Jakaya Kikwete’s elder son was involved in
illegal activity. The newspaper was banned again indefinitely in July 2012 on
what media freedom advocates call “vague charges of sedition and false
reporting.”
In 2013, the government banned the widely read newspapers
Mwananchi and Mtanzania. It then suspended circulation of The East African in
January 2015, accusing the paper of having a negative agenda against Tanzania.
(The East African was just allowed to return last week.)
The current Mawio ban smacks of politics. The “inflammatory”
articles were about the ongoing stalemate in semi-autonomous Zanzibar, where
poll results were nullified after accusations of “irregularities” – including
apparent victory for the main opposition party. (Although part of Tanzania,
Zanzibaris vote not only for a national Tanzanian president, but also for a
Zanzibari president and assembly. Until now, the post of the president was
always occupied by a member of the ruling party.)
So it’s not surprising that the independent international
organization Freedom House consistently rates Tanzania’s media as only “partly
free.”
As minister of works, Mr. Magufuli was nicknamed “The Bulldozer,”
someone who got things done, a technocrat who had no links to the many
corruption scandals that recently rocked the country. As president, he has been
bulldozing tax evasion and perceived redundancies. For instance, he slashed the
cabinet from 30 to 19 posts, merging some ministries and getting rid of others.
Such efforts to kutumbua majipu (literally, “to burst
boils”) have brought him widespread praise. But he may prove unwilling to raze
the country’s restrictive legal and regulatory environment.
The question now is not, “What would Magufuli do?” but “What
will Magufuli do?”
*Ruth Carlitz is a Ph.D. candidate in political science at
UCLA and was a Boren Fellow in Tanzania in 2013.
No comments:
Post a Comment