The 1982 elections for membership of the national executive committee of Chama Cha Mapundizi : a case study of political recruitment in Tanzania

The main manifest function of Chama Cha Mapundizi (CCM), Tanzania's one party, is political recruitment. It is an institution to generate candidates for public office. Anybody who aspires towards a political position must seek support in the party. With this in mind, the authors look at the social background of the candidates in the elections for membership of the National Executive Committee (NEC) of CCM in October 1982. The analysis falls into three parts: a description of the social background of candidates with respect to occupation, age, and education; a comparison of the social background of the total number of candidates with that of those elected; an analysis of the place of the NEC in the power structure by tracing the political careers of those elected and examining the overlapping occupation of positions in various institutions, indicating at the same time the degree of openness or closeness of the Tanzanian political elite. - App., notes, tab