Having secured re-election at the presidential and legislative elections in October 2010-albeit with a lower share of the vote than in 2005-the president, Jakaya Kikwete, and the ruling party, Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM), have another strong mandate to lead Tanzania over the next five years. As a result, the country is unlikely to face any significant threats to its political stability during the forecast period. However, since the start of 2011 it has become increasingly clear that there will be a background rumble of discontent as the Chama Cha Demokrasia na Maendeleo (Chadema), which emerged as the main opposition party at the elections, seeks to establish a higher-profile political role.

The main reason for these tensions is because, rather than use a more conventional parliamentary route to challenge the government, Chadema seems intent on adopting a more aggressive and populist approach, certainly by Tanzanian political standards, in opposing the CCM. Recent marches organised to protest at the conduct of the 2010 elections and to demand constitutional reform have resulted in violent clashes with the police. Nevertheless, although the political battle with Chadema will dominate the headlines from time to time, it is not considered to be a major threat to overall political stability unless badly mismanaged by the dominant CCM.

Instead, the main focus will be on whether during his final term in office, liberated from the constraints of pleasing different factions within the CCM in order to maintain support, Mr Kikwete can step up his tentative efforts to reform the party. The first step in this direction happened in April 2011 with major changes to all the senior posts within the National Executive Committee, with alterations to the wider structure of the party expected to follow. However, it still remains unclear whether the changes are a genuine effort at overhauling the party, or part of a more superficial campaign to marginalise various factions within the CCM. It is also debatable how much time and effort Mr Kikwete will be prepared to devote to political infighting and how much he wants to allocate to other national policies.

One element that is likely to help Mr Kikwete is that the political elite on the mainland will not be distracted this time by political unrest on the islands of Zanzibar, as the formation of a government of national unity (GNU) in 2010 has created a political compromise that is acceptable to all parties. This is especially the case because the new Zanzibari president, Ali Mohammed Shein, is a loyal ally of Mr Kikwete and a political moderate whom the Economist Intelligence Unit expects to try to make the GNU work in the spirit of compromise in which it was agreed. However, the Zanzibar question is unlikely to die away completely in the coming years. In particular, if-as seems likely-there is a commercially developable hydrocarbon find close to the archipelago in the coming years, a higher degree of political nationalism on the islands is likely to emerge.