Foreign influences on the democratization processes: the case of the 1995 general elections in Tanzania.

The major purpose of this study was to analyse the extent of the influences of foreign actors in the 1995 General Elections in Tanzania. The contents of the study are based on the data obtained through interviews with officials of the donor community based in Dar es Salaam. The contents are also based on the interviews with leaders of political parties and prominent individuals as well as on data procured from a wide range of documents and books obtained from the libraries of the University of Dar es Salaam and USIS. Specifically this study set out to answer the following questions: What role did foreign actors play in the 1995 general elections in Tanzania; why, when and how did foreign actors get involved in the 1995 general elections in Tanzania; and what are the future prospects for the democratization experiment in Tanzania. The study was guided by two hypotheses: (i) that foreign actors played an overriding role in all critical stages of the 1995 electoral process in Tanzania and (ii) that dependency on donor funding made it inevitable for foreign actors to assume an overriding role in the elections. The study is presented in five chapters. Chapter one provides the research design and background information on the democratization processes. Chapter two reviews the available literature on political democratization in order to underscore the position of Tanzania in that arena. Chapter three analyses the factors that militated for the drive to multi-party politics in Tanzania. Chapter four gives a critical analysis and discussion of foreign actors involvement in, and influences on, the 1995 Tanzanian electoral process. Chapter three and four reveal some striking insights about the Tanzanian political democratization. Whilst chapter three shows that Tanzania's movement to plural politics was, by and large, an internal affair propelled by internal processes, in chapter four what comes out unequivocally is that the 1995 elections were conducted under a significant amount of foreign influences. These influences are discussed in the areas of civic and voter education, the composition of Electoral Commissions, and appointment of Returning Officers, relationship with political parties, acquisition of election materials, voting, vote counting and election results, and election observation. Chapter five concludes by submitting that the future prospects of democracy in Tanzania are bright though there are some hurdles that lie ahead. It further submits that the sustainability of democracy is contingent upon an internal vibrant and politically conscious civil society which the country should build, empower and sustain.