The Japan Times PUBDATE: 4/26/2009 PAGE: 5 C M Y K OUTPUT TIME: 22:32:8

4/26/199 / / PT SUP/PG 5/ED 1

(4) THE JAPAN TIMES SUNDAY, APRIL 26, 2009 5

world

ANC win shy of needed two-thirdsWestern Cape opposition deniesZuma’s party cherished majority

PretoriaAP

------------------------------------------

South Africa’s long-dominantANC won overwhelmingly inparliamentary elections, butdid not get the two-thirds of thevote it won with ease in the lastelections, according to the fi-nal tally released Saturday.The victory puts party leaderJacob Zuma in line for thepresidency.

The African National Con-gress took 65.9 percent of thenearly 18 million votes castWednesday.

The victory was never indoubt. But it was unclearwhether the party would re-tain its coveted two-thirds ofthe seats in the 400-memberParliament. The vote tallyroughly parallels the seat dis-tribution, but the exact num-ber of seats must still be allot-ted by election officials ac-

cording to a complicated for-mula after the final count iscertified.

The ANC won 69.69 percentof the vote in the last electionsin 2004, when it was led by Zu-ma’s rival Thabo Mbeki. Itwon 66.35 percent in 1999. Inthe country’s first all-racevote in 1994, the ANC won 62.64percent of the vote.

The party’s rivals will makemuch of the slide, howeverslight.

It could be seen as a messagethat voters want some limits onthe party. ANC rivals had ar-gued Zuma should not have thetwo-thirds majority needed toenact major budgetary plans orlegislation unchallenged, or tochange the constitution.

It could be linked to the splitin the movement that defeatedapartheid. A new, black-ledparty formed by disgruntledformer ANC leaders close to

Mbeki was placed third in therace, with just over 7 percentof the final tally.

The main opposition Demo-cratic Alliance got just over 16percent. More than 77 percent ofthe country’s 23 million regis-tered voters cast ballots.

A strong ethnic vote fromZulus in Zuma’s rural home-land helped boost the ANC,which sees the populist Zumaas the first leader who can en-ergize voters since the legend-ary Nelson Mandela. Support-ers confident of an ANC victo-ry have been celebrating sincevoting ended Wednesday.

Parliament elects the presi-dent in South Africa, and wasexpected to vote Zuma into of-fice in May.

Zuma faces a heavy respon-sibility — meeting expecta-tions for change among SouthAfrica’s impoverished blackmajority.

Some say Zuma is too be-holden to unions and leftists,and will not be able to fulfill hispromises of creating jobs and astronger social safety net. At

the end of the campaign, Zumawas talking not about creatingjobs, but staving off job losses.

The country’s racial dividestill runs deep, as seen fromthe results in the WesternCape province. Mixed-racevoters, feeling marginalizednow after being treated betterthan blacks under apartheid’sracist rules, make up morethan half of the WesternCape’s population and votedlargely for the oppositionDemocratic Alliance.

Whites also turned out inlarge numbers for the largelywhite Democratic Alliance,which has courted mixed-racevoters and was close to gain-ing an outright majority in theWestern Cape provincial legis-lature. The ANC trailed withless than one-third of the vote.

Democratic Alliance leaderHelen Zille had said her mainelection goals were to stop theANC’s two-thirds majorityand to win the Western Cape,which is the heart of the coun-try’s wine and tourism indus-tries. Zille, who won praise for

her stint as mayor of CapeTown, is now expected to be-come the province’s premier.

Mixed-race people — manyof whom trace their ancestryto Malay slaves — had morerights than blacks underapartheid and emerged skep-tical of the ANC, which theysee as a black party. The ANC,though, has support fromsome mixed-race South Afri-cans and whites across SouthAfrica, and politicians fromboth groups have prominentroles in the party.

The ANC lost support ineight of the country’s nineprovinces, with a drop of up to10 points in some cases, butstill won those provinces.However, they gained over 15percent of support in Kwa-Zulu-Natal at the expense ofthe traditional Zulu party, theInkatha Freedom Party.

The ANC breakaway party,known as COPE, came in sec-ond in five of the provinces, amajor achievement for agroup that only had a fewmonths to prepare.

President of the UnitedRepublic of Tanzania JakayaMrisho Kikwete

Feels like victory: South African Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille (left) is welcomed byparty members at the airport in Cape Town on Friday. AP

Tanzania union day

Tanzanian icon: Standing 5,895 meters, Mount Kilimanjaro is the highest peak in Africa. TANZANIA EMBASSY

Growth, development built on stability, peaceJilly E. MalekoCHARGE D’AFFAIRES A.I., TANZANIA

EMBASSY

------------------------------------------

Today, April 26, 2009, the Unit-ed Republic of Tanzania cele-brates its 45th Union Day, theanniversary of the country’sfounding. On behalf of my gov-ernment and H.E. JakayaMrisho Kikwete, president ofthe United Republic of Tanza-nia, I would like to extendwarm greetings to Their Im-perial Majesties EmperorAkihito and Empress Michiko.In a special way, I would liketo extend warm greetings tothe prime minister of thisgreat country, Taro Aso, andthrough him to all the people ofJapan.

Ever since the establish-ment of the union government,Tanzania has enjoyed afriendly and strong relation-ship with Japan, especiallysince the opening of the Japa-nese Embassy in Dar es Sa-laam in 1961 and Tanzania’smission in Tokyo in 1970.

With regard to my country’sachievements, Tanzania hasrecorded encouraging devel-opment in all spheres — politi-cal, economic and social aswell as international rela-tions.Economic achievements

Tanzania is a free marketeconomy, where trade, inter-est and exchange rates are ful-ly liberalized. The countrystarted considerable reformsin economic policies and strat-egies in the mid-1980s to createa macroeconomic growthframework. Such reformshave been a force in economicgrowth and development.Tanzania has been able to at-tain an average of 5.5 percenteconomic growth for the lastsix years coupled with single-digit inflation — a dramatictransformation from the nega-tive growth and over 36 per-cent inflation prior to the re-forms. This has happened de-spite the global oil and foodcrisis in 2008. The vision forTanzania is to be a middle-in-come country by 2025.

Notwithstanding, it is ex-pected that the achievementswill be negatively impacted bythe global financial and eco-nomic crisis as it is affectingcountries around the world.The gross domestic product,which enjoyed a positive trendfor quite some time is expect-ed to fall from 7.5 percentgrowth in 2008 to 6.5 percent or6.9 percent for 2009.

The main economic impe-tus sectors are expected to re-cord lower growth comparedto the previous year. The agri-culture sector, which employsabout 80 percent of the popula-tion, accounts for about half ofGDP and provides about 85percent of exports, is expectedto decline from 3.6 percent in2008 to 3.1 percent in 2009. Thetourism sector has already re-corded a shortfall of 15 percent

of expected visitors to thecountry. This is going to affectdomestic revenue collectionand the overall coming bud-get.

The mining sector is alsogreatly affected as the price oftanzanite, diamonds and otherminerals has dropped in theworld market. Tanzanite,which sold at $500 per carat,now sells for $200 per caratwhile the price of diamondshas dropped by almost 60 per-cent. Unemployment will alsoincrease as many companiesare closing down because offalling domestic and interna-tional demand for their prod-ucts.

In light of the global finan-cial and economic crisis, thegovernment has initiated anumber of measures to miti-gate its effects on the nationaleconomy to a certain level.These measures include main-taining sufficient food stocksfor the country through a stra-tegic grain reserve and pro-viding relief food to areas withshortages.

The government is also fo-cusing on instilling account-ability and transparency in itsinstitutions, and reducing gov-ernment expenditures, espe-cially those related to admin-istrative costs, and allocatingthe saved funds to the agricul-ture sector.

The government policy is toimprove agricultural produc-tivity through improved ex-tension services to farmers,including the provision of ma-chinery such as power tillers,and subsidize food productionby increasing access to farminputs like fertilizers.

Tanzania’s economy is pri-vate sector driven. Thereforemuch needs to be done tostrengthen the country’s pri-vate sector to engineer anddrive economic growth. In thisregard, the government is put-ting a lot of effort into buildinga conducive environment inwhich the private sector cangrow. These initiatives in-clude financing for infrastruc-ture development such as roadconstruction, railways, portimprovement, power and wa-ter supply networks, etc. Theprivate sector has also beenencouraged to look for alter-native markets in the regionas well as in Asia as a way todeal with the problem of re-duced export demand fromtraditional markets like Eu-rope.

Against that backdrop, thegovernment of Tanzania urg-es development partners andthe international communityto continue their assistancethrough general budget sup-port provisions to poor coun-tries, including Tanzania.Political achievements

Since the formation of theunion, the United Republic ofTanzania has remained one ofthe most peaceful and politi-cally stable nations on the con-

tinent. Peace and security,rule of law, good governanceand democracy have re-mained the main driving forceof our political stability evenafter the introduction of a mul-tiparty political system in theearly 1990s. Tanzania so farhas conducted three multipar-ty elections, which were allconsidered to be free and fairby observers.

Next year, there will be ageneral election. This yearthere will be local governmentelections throughout the coun-try, which we are also optimis-tic will be free and fair.

All the people enjoy free-dom of the press, expressionand association that also havestrengthened the union for thelast 45 years.Social development

Taking the private sector asthe engine of growth and de-velopment, Tanzania consid-ers and believes that having awell-educated and healthierpopulation is an importantcomponent for vibrant pri-vate-sector development.

Tanzania has undertaken var-ious measures to improve itssocial sector. These includeexpansion and improvementof elementary and secondaryschool facilities, and chil-dren’s enrollment. At thesame time, the government isengaged in expanding tertiaryand technical education to en-hance the capacity of manyyoung people to participate inproductive activities. Thecountry has also improvedwomen’s access to education,training and employment. Inthe health sector, the govern-ment is expanding health fa-cilities and improving theirquality.

The water supply network isbeing improved, and variousdisease intervention pro-grams such as immunization,control of malaria, HIV/AIDSand tuberculosis are going on.International diplomacy

In the international arena,Tanzania has remained astrong and active member ofregional and international or-ganizations. In terms of re-gional cooperation, Tanzaniais a member of the East AfricaCommunity, South AfricanDevelopment Community andGreat Lakes Region while con-tinentally it is a member of theAfrican Union. As for interna-tional engagement, Tanzaniais a member of the United Na-tions, the Nonaligned Move-ment and the Commonwealth.

Engagement in these re-gional and international bod-ies has enabled Tanzania topractice its right to condemnand support various interna-tional issues such as peace andsecurity, human rights, prac-

tice of good governance, de-mocracy, as well as variouseconomic policies for the bet-terment of Africa and theworld at large.

Since the establishment ofthe union, Tanzania has en-gaged in fruitful bilateral andmultilateral international co-operation. The country has al-ways enjoyed long-estab-lished relations with Japan,including close exchange ofvisits. It is the Tanzanian mis-sion’s role to cement the exist-ing friendly relations in the po-litical and economic spheres.

The business links betweenJapan and Tanzania are notwell developed but are prom-ising, with a number of newcompanies establishing in-vestment ventures in Tanza-nia. Such companies includeSumitomo Co., which is pro-ducing insecticide mosquitonets in Arusha, and Oji PaperCo., which is planning to es-tablish a eucalyptus planta-tion in the Mtwara and Lindiregions of the country. Tanza-nia welcomes more investorsto take up ventures in Tanza-nia, and Africa in general asthere is a lot of hope and oppor-tunities in agriculture, agro-processing, mining, tourismand the service industries. Webelieve that foreign direct in-vestment will help tap the richpotential in various sectorsand accelerate sustainable de-velopment for the country. In-vestors in Tanzania can ac-cess the huge markets avail-able through the East AfricaCommunity and South AfricanDevelopment Community,and the U.S. market throughthe AGOA and U.K. market

through the EU’s EverythingBut Arms initiative.

There are policies in placeto help the private sector totake off, among others a one-stop center to facilitate for-eign investments in licensing,customs, land acquisition andany other investment-relatedissues, and the Tanzania In-vestment Center will cater forall these.

Tanzania is also one of thebest and safest places for a va-cation. Tourism promotionshave been launched to attractmore tourists to Tanzanianicons such as Mount Kiliman-jaro, Serengeti Wildlife Parkand the Spice Islands of Zanzi-bar. Japanese visitors arepromised a wonderful vaca-

tion discovering Tanzania’snatural beauty and diverse na-ture.

It is worth acknowledgingJapan’s contribution to Africa,including Tanzania, throughthe TICAD process. About 40African countries, includingTanzania, attended the TI-CAD IV meeting in May 2008 inYokohama. Tanzania wel-comes the assistance Japanhas accorded to African coun-tries by doubling its officialdevelopment assistance to Af-rica by 2012, doubling Japa-nese private investment in Af-rica by June 2021, and othervarious support in infrastruc-ture, capacity building and theinitiative to double rice pro-duction in Africa from 14 mil-

lion tons/year to 28 milliontons/year by 2018.

Once again on behalf of thegovernment of the United Re-public of Tanzania, I wouldlike to acknowledge with thehighest appreciation the assis-tance that the government ofJapan has and continues to ex-tend to Tanzania. Such assis-tance has contributed consid-erably to Tanzania’s efforts inaccelerating economic growthas a way to achieve sustain-able development. Such sup-port has contributed much tothe revival of sectors like edu-cation, infrastructure, agri-culture, health and utilities, tomention a few on a long list.

Long live the relationshipbetween Japan and Tanzania!