ZANZIBAR: OPPOSITION CUF CALLS GOVT DIALOGUE "DEAD"

C O N F I D E N T I A L DAR ES SALAAM 000566 AF/E FOR JLIDDLE; DS/DSS/ITA FOR DROTHSTEIN E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/02/2013 TAGS: KDEM PGOV PINR PBTS TZ SUBJECT: ZANZIBAR: OPPOSITION CUF CALLS GOVT DIALOGUE "DEAD" REF: DAR ES SALAAM 444 Classified By: Deputy Chief of Mission Larry Andre for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d). ¶1. (C) SUMMARY: On August 30, a Zanzibar-based opposition party (CUF) Senior Political Strategist Dr. Juma Ameri Muchi told Emboff that &Muafaka,8 the power-sharing talks between the ruling CCM party and CUF, &was dead.8 CUF would now focus on consolidating its base and organizing the party in the lead-up to the 2010 Zanzibar General Elections. On August 31, CUF leadership held rallies in Dar es-Salaam and Zanzibar in which CUF claimed that the national government had violated the terms of Union between Tanganyika and Zanzibar. CUF called for the formation of a body separate from the national parliament that would review the Union Agreement. CUF leaders want donor countries to condition aid to pressure the national government into inviting UN observers to the 2010 elections. END SUMMARY ¶2. (C) On August 30 a Zanzibar-based opposition party (CUF) Senior Political Strategist Dr. Juma Ameri Muchi told Emboff that few Zanzibaris believed that the CCM-led government had been negotiating in good faith. For CUF, just agreeing to participate in the &Muafaka8 talks at all was a difficult and divisive decision for the party but worth pursuing in order to exhaust all possibilities for a break-though because &without a compromise within the present situation of no democracy, there could only be violence.8 That the government was now calling to bring the Muafaka,s recommendations to a referendum, after years of negotiations, was an insult since the basis of the discussions was the lack of free and fair elections on Zanzibar. Dr. Muchi said that as far as CUF was concerned, &Muafaka is dead.8 ¶3. (C) Dr. Muchi said the week of August 25 CUF held a party plenary in Dar es-Salaam at which CUF decided to abandon the Muafaka discussion track with CCM in favor of working fulltime to consolidate CUF,s base and party organization prior to the 2010 Zanzibar elections. Dr. Muchi concluded that 2010 was the last, best chance for a stable, united Tanzania. He warned that Zanzibari &youth8 would not stand idly by for "yet another stolen election.8 (Note: multiparty elections returned to Zanzibar in 1995, and there were subsequent elections in 2000 and 2005, all of which had irregularities; see reftel. End Note.) 
 ¶4. (SBU) Dr. Muchi was adamant that &only the international community8 was in a position to pressure the CCM government to allow free and fair elections and to step aside for an inevitable CUF victory in Zanzibar. He said that only the UN would be a credible guarantor for the election. Emboff noted that the UN could not come in unilaterally, but needed to be invited by the host country. Dr Muchi replied that a role for donor nations would be to condition aid as a lever to pressure the national government to invite international outside observers and, moreover, to hold fair elections. CUF RALLIES IN RESPONSE TO KIKWETE ¶5. (U) Dr. Muchi said CUF would hold rallies in response to Kikwete,s recent &tour d,horizon8 address before Parliament just prior to his Aug. 26-31 visit to the U.S. In his speech, Kikwete said Zanzibar was not an independent state but the wishes of its people were taken into account by the Union government of Tanzania; accordingly, issues such as Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) membership could be undertaken by Tanzania. ¶6. (U) At the August 31 rally in Zanzibar, CUF Secretary-General Seif Shariff Hamad reportedly centered his theme on the union between Tanganyika and Zanzibar, focusing on the Articles of Union and contrasting them with amendments to the constitution that he said violated the Union agreement. Hamad further claimed that international cooperation was not included in Union issues, and Zanzibar was a country not just at the Union level but in international fora as well. As such, Zanzibar had the competency to not only join the OIC on its own, not as part of Tanzania, but also to speak directly with international bodies such as FAO and WHO. Hamad concluded that the current Union set-up does nothing but &consolidate strategies to swallow Zanzibar and write-off the Zanzibari people from the world map.8 Hamad asked the crowd (estimated by local media to be about 40,000 strong) if it favored the current union, and the answer was &no.8 ¶7. (U) On the mainland, national CUF party Chairman Ibrahim Lipumba also held a rally the same day entitled "A Lack of Leadership and the End of Tanzania." He spoke for more than an hour to a crowd of several hundred about the failings of President Kikwete and the need for change in the upcoming 2010 elections. COMMENT: ¶8. (C) CUF takes it as a given that it enjoys wide support throughout the Zanzibar archipelago and would win a clear majority there in a referendum. Nonetheless, Dr. Muchi revealed that there may be some divisions within CUF ranks. There may be a certain catch-all composition to CUF as the primary alternative to the entrenched )- widely seen by islanders as corrupt and ineffectual ) CCM government of Zanzibar. It is likely that CUF leadership is concerned that the party might factionalize if it fails to deliver in the 2010 Zanzibari election. If that were to occur, balkanized, insular political views might diminish Zanzibar,s voice-- or certainly CUF's voice-- on the national stage. GREEN