The overlooked power of youth and women’s votes

Tanzania is heading to the polls for the seventh time since multiparty politics were officially restored in the early 1990s.

Women and young voters could, in theory, be the kingmakers in the vote, making up the largest voting blocs by occupying over 51% and roughly 60% of the country’s demographics, respectively.

Yet, their chief concerns appear to be secondary at best to prospective lawmakers vying for political power, as the election campaigns enter their final round.

Tanzania’s incumbent President Samia Suluhu Hassan is widely seen as focusing too little on the issues of women and young voters.

The youth vote: lost in a vacuum

Close to two thirds of Tanzania’s total population is made up of young people below the age of 35, whose main worries seem to echo similar issues from other parts of the continent: job creation, access to quality education, and securing land rights.

However when looking at the election campaigns, these concerns appear to be relegated to the sidelines.

A significant factor contributing to this negligence of youth issues is entrenched in the nature of the country’s political landscape itself: Traditionally, Tanzanian youth have tended to side with opposition parties — much to the ire of the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM or Party of the Revolution), which has historically enjoyed greater support among older generations, leading the country for decades.

Among opposition groups, the main opposition Chadema Party (Party for Democracy and Progress) has typically enjoyed the biggest support among Tanzania’s youth.

But Chadema’s controversial disqualification from the general election has left a profound vacuum, which no other group has managed to fill among the country’s youth.

“The absence of Chadema in elections is an automatic elimination of a significant percentage of youth,” notes Lovelet Lwakatare, a political analyst based in the country’s biggest city, Dar es Salaam.

According to Lwakatare, this leaves Tanzanian youth in a vacuum, with their chief concerns being addressed only on the ruling party’s terms instead.

Women: A quiet — and overlooked — force in politics

While the visibility of women in Tanzania’s political arena is growing, their key concerns equally appear to remain overlooked in the upcoming vote.

Both the opposition Chama cha Wazalendo (ACT or Alliance for Change and Transparency party) — currently the third-largest political party in Tanzania — and the ruling CCM feature multiple female candidates, including names pegged to the presidential and vice-presidential roles as well as other positions of leadership.

Mzuri Issa, the head of the Tanzanian Media Women Association (TAMWA) in Zanzibar, explains that while women are often seen attending rallies, their role as candidates is expanding only gradually, with any improvement in this area rarely being credited to Tanzania’s first female president, Samia Suluhu Hassan, who has been in office for the past four years.

“This truly is a new picture in our politics, though representation remains far from proportional,” Issa commented.

She adds however that many core issues among female voters — which cane range from women’s health to combatting gender-based violence, and from greater participation in land ownership to better access to micro-finance — have rarely been met or even sufficiently addressed in recent years.

Critics like Issa point out that instead of thorough institutional reform, the political debate on these concerns has traditionally often been reduced to mere symbolic gestures in the past.

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Political analyst Said Miraji explains however that this might be changing, nothing a recent shift in the ruling CCM party’s approach to women’s health:

“CCM has clearly stated in their policies that within the first 100 days [upon election], President Samia Suluhu Hassan will hire many nurses and midwives,” he highlighted, stressing that this “very specific and measurable promise” is directly aimed at female voters.

Salome Kitomari, an editor at the daily Nipashe newspaper, agrees that election rallies increasingly “have touched on issues concerning women — whether it’s health, empowerment, or loans, and how these candidates plan to raise women’s standards of living.”

While this might appear like a promising step in the direction of women’s empowerment and true equality, analyst Lwakatare raises a crucial shortcoming in these visions: in most instances they do not originate from members of this target group — women — themselves.

According to Lwaktare, even the President’s own pledges often fail to “strategically outline how [they] would specifically help women and youth eliminate their unique challenges, especially those in the informal sector or rural areas.”

“The party youth and women’s wings often function as mere cheerleaders for established politicians — more often elderly men,” she says, adding that much of the various parties’ manifestos are also penned by the country’s male elites: “business practitioners and urban dwellers; not the actual women and youth who are the targets.”

Systemic abuse and misogyny

In turn, this can also result in those few women and youth, who decide to brave the country’s political arena as candidates, facing an environment that is rife with growing pains, which typically can only be overcome with political clout and money.

Neither of those two key resources tend to run in abundance for those two group, especially finances:

“You need money to fund your campaign, and many women are poor. The community looks down upon those without money, as [established] politicians often spend huge amounts,” explains Issa, adding that World Bank data shows that poverty is disproportionately higher among women in Tanzania.

Furthermore, Issa highlights that this situation exacerbates a far more sinister issue in the East African nation: “The lack of financial independence makes them vulnerable targets.”

“This is where the issue of sexual oppression and corruption comes in, where many women have been severely harassed and intimidated in their pursuit of political office.”

Peer pressure at the ballot box

Even among women and youth who are far removed from actively participating in policy-making, the weight of entrenched gender roles, cultural norms, and traditions is easily felt at the ballot box:

Many voters in Tanzania say they are primarily influenced by what outsiders would identify as peer pressure, whether this entails party loyalty inherited for generations within families, strong local support for individual candidates, or immediate relief doled out by candidates — such as small financial handouts — in exchange for votes.

Especially in rural areas, there are only few voters who display a deep level of engagement with actual party manifestos.

An ignored potential for change

For such reasons, the participation of Tanzania’s youth and women in politics remains largely passive; even in a country headed by a female president, change appears to be slow.

“Many candidates mentioned 100-day plans. Women and youth are now waiting to see which actions will have a positive impact on their lives,” says Kitomare, while Lwakatare remains more concerned with the voting process on election day itself:

“It will be interesting to know why people go to vote: Is it because of the promises given by the candidates and their political parties, or are they just voting because of mob psychology, or simply because they don’t have any other option?”