66. In October 1985, Mwalimu Nyerere, a pioneer of the African one-party state, leader of the non-aligned movement and an advocate of African socialism, stepped down from office. Ali Hassan Mwinyi, his Vice President, succeeded him. Nyerere retained his position as Chairman of the ruling CCM party for five more years until 1990 when he handed that responsibility over to Mwinyi. However, he remained influential in Tanzanian politics until his death in October 1999. 67. Running unopposed, Mwinyi was elected President of Tanzania in 1985. In 1990, President Mwinyi appointed the Nyalali Commission to seek peoples’ views on a multi-party system. Although the majority of the people preferred a one-party state, the Commission recommended the establishment of a multi-party system (Meena, 2008). In October 1995, Tanzania’s first general multi-party elections were held since independence.16 68. In the 1995 elections, the ruling party won comfortably amid accusations of widespread irregularities and its candidate, Benjamin William Mkapa, was subsequently sworn in as the new President of Tanzania. Contested elections in late 2000 led to a massacre in Zanzibar in January 2001. In the October 2000 elections, Mkapa was re-elected. In 2005, Mr Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete of the Chama Cha Mapinduzi Party and Foreign Affairs Minister won the presidential elections, with 80 per cent of votes cast. 69. Tanzania held its fourth multi-party general elections on 31 October 2010. The ruling CCM party faced its most serious competition in the multi-party era. President Kikwete was re-elected with 61.7 per cent of the vote. The Chadema party, for the first time, garnered most of the opposition votes. Chadema’s presidential candidate, Willibrod Slaa, took 27 per cent of the vote, while the Civic United Front (CUF)’s Ibrahim Lipumba received 8 per cent. Voter turnout – at 42 per cent - was by far the lowest in Tanzanian history. Hitherto, at least 70 per cent of registered voters had cast ballots. 70. The CCM retained its absolute majority in Parliament, with nearly 80 per cent of the seats. With a total of 47 seats – 24 elected and 23 ‘special seats’ for women – Chadema for the first time displaced CUF as the official opposition and selected its Chairman, Freeman Mbowe, as opposition leader. The new Parliament selected Ms. Anne Makinda as Tanzania’s first woman Speaker of Parliament. Makinda, a Member of Parliament since 1975 and former minister, had served as Deputy Speaker since 2005. 71. On the other hand, self-governing Zanzibar (3.0 per cent of Tanzania’s population) has long been the tempestuous exception to Mainland Tanzania’s peaceful politics. Until recently, serious irregularities and sporadic violence marred every election in Zanzibar since 1964. However, after years of abortive negotiations, the main opposition party - CUF - and the ruling party were able to come to a power-sharing agreement. The outcome of the 31 July 2010 referendum set the stage for peaceful general elections in Zanzibar. The power-sharing deal eliminated the winner-take-all system, giving the losing side one of two vice presidential slots and ministerial positions in proportion to the number of seats garnered in the House of Representatives. Box 2.3: Best Practice: Political Reconciliation in Zanzibar The entrenchment of power-sharing arrangements in the form of Government of National Unity (GNU) has been an innovative approach to end the long standing political conflict in Zanzibar where the society was politically and socially polarized from the colonial era, the polarization which continued after independence and further revived and intensified following the introduction of multiparty politics in 1992. After years of intense debates between the CUF and CCM, the two political parties finally reached a power-sharing agreement. Under the new constitutional arrangement, the party which wins the presidency in Zanzibar is required to form a government in collaboration with the party or parties which have representation in the House of Representatives. The party which takes the second position in the election gets the post of the First Vice President and ministerial portfolios are distributed in proportion to the share of seats in the House of Representatives. This arrangement significantly reduces the political stakes involved in elections in a situation whereby electoral political competition was a zero-sum-game and a matter of life and death among the two main contending political forces on the Islands 16 In 1990, a coalition of ethnic and cultural groups of Zanzibar demanded a referendum on independence. They declared that the merger with the Mainland Tanzania, based on the now defunct ideology of socialism, had transformed Zanzibar from a bustling economic power into a poor, neglected appendage. Their demands were neglected. 36