Publicity and January Makamba’s Quest for the Presidency
Chambi Chachage
What happens to the
populace when our bright and brightest do your political bidding? Who can stop
a politician who has mastered the art of political performance? When he runs for
the presidency would any critical analysis make sense for the citizenry basking
in his brand? Why, in fact, should we analyze him critically?
January Makamba’s
quest for the presidency is indeed an exercise in the mastery of image
building. After my
lengthy critique of his conversation with Padre Privatus Karugendo that has
been published as a book, I followed closely its
publicity in the social media. What struck me was the extent to which
socialites and other superstars have been branding its form without a serious public
engagement with its contents.
It was thus interesting
to receive in my inbox (yesterday) Ben Taylor’s analysis on Can January Makamba Be
the Next President of Tanzania?. Famously known as @mtega
among the ‘twitterati’ in the blogosphere, Taylor makes this observation after
noting that in 2010 the Economist, a magazine that Tanzanian business and
political elites pay attention to, published a “surprisingly uncritical
interview” with January: “Fast-forward five years and Makamba now aspires to
become Tanzania’s next president. And with the same charm and media-savvy that
won over the Economist’s writer, he has risen from a rank outsider a few
months ago to become a plausible candidate”.
The keyword is
“media-savvy”. And as we now know, there is this thing called ‘social media’
with its blogs, listservs twitter, whatsapp and facebook. So we are also
talking here of ‘social media-savvy’.
No wonder yesterday
we also received January’s
letter via an email to Wanazuoni’s listserv.
He wrote it – in his then capacity as the Chairman of the Parliamentary
Committee on Energy and Minerals – to the then newly appointed Minister of
Energy and Minerals in 2011. Why is it about to go ‘viral’ now in 2015?
In a way it is a response
to those of us who have been questioning his role, if any, in
fighting grand corruption. This is a difficult critique to respond to no wonder
even the sympathetic Taylor has this to say in his analysis of the
recently-launched book on January: “But it’s easy to be tough in general terms,
and anyone reading this book hoping to get Makamba’s views on specific
past corruption scandals – Escrow, EPA, Richmond or the BAE radar
– will be disappointed. I wasn’t expecting any different….”
Yet the social
media-savvy politician is relentlessly branding himself as the brand new hope
for/of Tanzanian youth. And Taylor seemingly agrees when he says: “Makamba is
arguably the best-placed CCM candidate to draw younger voters away from
opposition parties, particularly Chadema, and back to CCM. Besides his
youth, he is relatively untainted by the corruption scandals of recent
years and has avoided the worst excesses of CCM factionalism. He would
probably deliver the party a bigger victory than any of the other likely
CCM aspirants”.
His apparent
political ally in rallying the youth in(to) politics, Zitto Kabwe, who appears
together with him in the last photograph in his recently launched book, wrote this ‘endorsement’
in 2010: “The constitution of Tanzania requires one to be 40 years old (not
45) and above to qualify for President. My friend January will be 41 in 2015… January
is one of the brightest people I have ever met. According to information online
he went to St. John’s University, a Catholic university in Minnesota. A top
school as far as I can gather….”
Such is the image
that has been publicized over the last five years. In the spirit of building
this image in July 29, 2013 January wrote about his Life
and Times in the Presidency: The Teleprompter Magic. Therein we see the
making of presidential campaigner portrayed as a brilliant political
strategist. Earlier, in July 25, 2013, the facebook-savvy diplomat wrote this
portrayal that numbed the nerves of those who questions his inexperience and massaged the ego of the incumbent President who partly holds the keys to the
post-2015 presidency: “Lesson: diplomacy is tough and as President you have to
be on top of the game. In my time working for President Kikwete I was amazed
everyday at how good a diplomat he is”.
In July 27, 2013 he
also wrote
in his blog about his ‘experience with the presidency’, thus showcasing his apparent ‘influence’: “I was fortunate that President Kikwete is very open-minded. But
you will have to be very well prepared to defend your arguments, as he will
challenge you – sometimes with angles you hadn’t seen or facts you hadn’t
considered. If you withstand the challenge, he will take your views on board.”
My attempt at writing
a satire about January’s campaign for a parliamentary seat in 2010 failed
miserably as the majority of its readers interpreted it as a praise song thus
missing the motive of its writer. It has this line that probably captures the
essence of this brief analysis – the need to look beyond the brand: “But it is
not only this ‘youth power’ that is behind the rise of January Makamba. One
only has to watch the video clip (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQevWZqk6Fs)
to understand what kind of force was and is behind his stride. Here is a master
strategist who knows the role of the power of performance in politics in this
ICT age.” Now imagine when such a ‘performer’ is the Deputy Minister responsible for
communication in the country.
Ironically, the name
of the month of January is derived from Janus, the
double-faced Roman god. He had one head/face looking back and another looking
forward. By way of analogy, this could help us with a methodology of analyzing
a brand that has become so ubiquitous to the extent that it has the potential
of hypnotizing/duping/hoodwink us. What we need is to look back and forward
closely and simultaneously, that is, critically.
Being ‘part and parcel’ of the CCM’s
presidential campaign team in 2005, January learned from ‘the best’. By
that I mean the best in ‘political machination’ that was dubbed ‘mtandao’ i.e.
‘web/network’. But some may say, ‘oh boy, he is his own man now’ yet one
shudders at the thought of a ‘back to the future’ déjà vu.
That is the eerie feeling I got when I read this from a potential young voter: “I
mean I am really rooting for January and if he does get the presidential ticket
to run I hope I will not be voting for him because of his charisma and good
looks (we did that 2005 and 2010 and look how great that worked out :-)”.
January is over.
October is around the corner. May we probe and vote with both our ‘emotional
hearts’ and ‘rational minds’. Amen.
