Tanzania

13 April 2022 marked the 100th anniversary of the birth of the first president of independent Tanzania Julius Kambarage Nyerere, whose political legacy has continued to exert great influence in the country after his death in 1999. The successors of Mwalimu (“teacher”), as Tanzanians called him, to the highest office were guided by his “vision of the future of Tanzania”, on the one hand, and used – not always appropriately – his name when promoting their own agenda, on the other. The paper examines the main vectors of the political development of Tanzania in the context of the succession of subsequent regimes. The authors analyze the main points of the formation of the Tanzanian nation and the reasons for the gradual departure of the country's leaders from the principles of “African socialism” and from the preservation of economic equality, national unity, etc., which were of paramount importance during Mwalimu's rule. Employing the theoretical-analytical and systemic-historical approaches to characterize Tanzanian political regimes, the authors conclude that, firstly, owing to the foundations of nation-building laid down by Mwalimu, Tanzania has for almost six decades maintained political stability, expressed primarily in the exclusively constitutional transfer of power from one political leader to another; secondly, that under the influence of internal and external political and economic processes, the principles of “African socialism” were gradually and peacefully replaced by market relations. Accordingly, in the 2010s-2020s Tanzanians found themselves in an era of “post-Nyererism”, although they retained national unity and pride in being “citizens of Tanzania

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