The Historical Overview of the Constitutional Reforms towards Limited Leadership in Tanzania

This paper points out the historical origins of most of the powers that are enjoyed by the President of the United Republic of Tanzania today. This is in essence a contribution to the current debate in Tanzania as to whether there is a need to cut down the broad powers of the President under the Constitution of the United Republic of Tanzania. In its historical perspective, the discussion proceeds by first comparing the powers of the President of Tanzania with those of the former colonial Governor. Having demonstrated the re‐institution of these powers after Independence, through the Republican Constitution of 1962, and the way they were utilized between 1965 and 1992, it is shown that the constitutional and political reforms that took effect from 1992 to date have not sufficiently addressed this problem. The paper proceeds to examine the work of the ‘Committee for the Collection of Views on the Constitution’ of 1999, which was given an opportunity to bring reform in this area, but which according to the author was not sufficiently effective in this regard.