My kind of politics

It's a long way to 2020, but already Zitto Kabwe has reportedly announced he will be one of the presidential candidates. Kabwe is chair of the Alliance for Change and Transparency (ACT - Tanzania). I do not not have a strong reason yet to support any single political party but I commend his move.

Zitto Kabwe addresses a campaign meeting in Musoma of the CHADEMA party in the 2010 elections.

Foremost, it provides an opportunity and ample time - five years - for voters to monitor his words and actions and decide in 2020 whether he deserves to become the next president. The current practice of presidential candidates revealing their presidential ambitions in final moments leading to an election is wrong, in my opinion.

Voters should have ample opportunity to assess the various candidates over a much more prolonged period. It is not enough to gauge the performance of a politician only during the several months leading up to the elections, and only, in my estimation, on how well the sponsoring party and image consultants project the candidates to the voters.

The Political Performance Indicator lists four qualities for judging the personality of a politician: rationality, authoritativeness, adventurousness, and inspiration. I am surprised they have omitted integrity, the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles. All the four listed qualities would be worthless if a leader lacks integrity. Perhaps it is assumed that integrity is a default quality among candidates.

There are undoubtedly some good apples in the political basket but integrity is the single most important factor that leaves many voters searching aimlessly for credible choices in contemporary Tanzanian politics.