2.2 The Post-Colonial Period I: Single-Party Rule

Authoritarianism has been characterized as the defining characteristic of the neo-colonial state in Tanzania.¹ In an authoritarian state, power is concentrated in the executive arm as personified by the President, with the power, authority and prestige of the representative organs of the people such as the legislature and the courts of law diminished accordingly. In his seminal work on African constitutionalism, Okoth-Ogendo has characterized this political and constitutional phenomenon as the "Imperial Presidency" (1991).

The authoritarian state is characterized by an oppressive legal system within which the law is used by the state to coerce its citizens rather than to confer rights upon them. Such a legal system, described by a leading constitutional scholar as "rightless law", confers wide discretionary powers on the president and his ministers and the central government bureaucrats under them (Shivji, 1990; 1996). The corollary to this concentration of power is the restriction or outright suppression of power centres outside state structures, such as social organisations and popular movements (Shivji, 1985).

In this respect, the independent Tanzanian state bears a strong resemblance to its colonial predecessor. Indeed, the post-colonial state inherited almost all the latter's laws and institutions. The Societies Ordinance which had been the lynchpin of colonial control over civil society, was also adopted without any substantial amendments other than the removal of the more obviously colonial, and therefore embarrassing, references such as that to "the Governor". The underlying philosophy of authoritarianism that had informed colonial law and practice was, therefore, retained largely intact.

Now, however, state authoritarianism was justified not only by the need to preserve order but also by what has come to be known as the ideology of developmentalism. The state had to be strong, the argument went, in order to bring development to the people. Popular organisations such as trade unions, cooperatives, political parties and local governments were proscribed in the supposed interests of development. The refusal to introduce a bill of rights into the constitutional amendments of the early 1960s was also justified on these grounds, as were many other infringements of people's rights.

The state justified its dirigiste, welfarist economic and social policies through the ideology of developmentalism as well. In this period it was virtually impossible to organise independently outside state structures. To be sure, some non-state organisations existed. These were, however, mostly charitable, religious bodies involved in provision of social services such as education and health care. They were tolerated because they were almost invariably apolitical and therefore posed little threat to the existing power structure. But even these organisations were not immune from the Tanzanian state's authoritarian policies - as the banning of the East African Muslim Welfare Society and the Ruvuma Development Association in the late 1960s illustrates. Even though the formation of the latter, a peasant organisation, was inspired by the state ideology of ujamaa, as a non-governmental organisation it was nevertheless perceived as a threat to the state's hegemony.

1. See Shivji, ed. (1985) for a thoroughgoing examination of state authoritarianism in Tanzania.