The relay of the transfer of power in tanzanian way (on the 25th anniversary of the exodus of the first President of Tanzania Julius Kambarage Nyerere)

Exactly a quarter of a century ago (October 14, 1999), the first President of the United Republic of Tanzania Julius Kambarage Nyerere passed away. The successors of Mwalimu (Teacher in Swahili), as Tanzanians call him with a greater or lesser degree of veil take a course toward reforming the party-state structure of society created by Tanzania’s Founding Father. The article examines the main prerequisites for the course toward change that emerged after Nyerere left the political scene, the party’s trend towards to centrist positions and pragmatism based on the principles of a market economy, partial privatization and economic modernization, the formation and functioning of the system of legitimate transfer of power in Tanzania. Describing the peculiarities of the rule of Nyerere’s successors the author concludes that Tanzania turned out to be almost the only African country that in its postcolonial development avoided political turbulence with its inherent military coups and civil wars, created and cultivated an exclusively constitutional mechanism for the transfer of power. Nevertheless, the gradual transition from the principles of «ujamaa» and «self-reliance» formulated and preached by the first president, to market relations occurred evolutionarily, while maintaining the main covenant of Mwalimu - the unity of the nation.