The top brass of Tanzania’s main opposition party Chadema began a two-day meeting in Dar es Salaam on Thursday, amid signs of an impending showdown over who to field against the ruling party’s candidate in next year’s presidential election.

The Central Committee gathering was triggered by vice-chairperson Tundu Lissu’s surprise announcement a fortnight ago that he was set to mount a second challenge for the presidency in 2025, this time against President Samia Suluhu Hassan.

Mr Lissu appeared to have jumped the gun, catching the party off guard, especially because its leader Freeman Mbowe is also believed to be nursing presidential ambitions. Though Chadema has maintained a stoic silence, offering no formal endorsement of the statement, speculations of a developing rift between the chairman and his maverick deputy have abounded.

The intrigue was further fuelled on Monday when another Central Committee member, Ezekia Wenje, abruptly unveiled his own plans to contest the seat currently occupied by Mr Lissu in internal party polls slated for later this year.

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These back-to-back developments come at a time the party is heading into what is shaping up as an uphill battle against the ruling CCM in nationwide local government elections expected in late October or early November.

As such, questions have abounded about the motives behind Mr Wenje’s move and the chances that sections of the Suluhu administration may have had a hand in it—to disrupt the main opposition force and cancel out the formidable threat still posed by Mr Lissu, despite his losing to former President John Magufuli in the controversy-riddden 2020 election.

The latest Chadema meeting is understood to have been hastily convened hours after Mr Wenje made his announcement.

The party is poised to conduct its top leadership elections before the end of 2024 once it has concluded a series of ongoing zonal polls to position itself accordingly for the civic polls. With the current focus on the bigger event, a date has yet to be set for the internal ballot, which may have to wait until December at the earliest—the same month it last held its election in 2019.

Speaking at Dar es Salaam’s Julius Nyerere International Airport on July 26 on his return from a vacation abroad, Mr Lissu told reporters that his intention to contest the presidency again was “still intact.”

“I shall heed the call of Tanzanians, and of my party. When I ran against Magufuli, I was 52 years old, next year I will be 57, but I still have the same strength of argument, political principles and people’s trust,” he said.

He dismissed speculations that he was also planning to contest the Chadema chairmanship, which Mr Mbowe has held for 20 years already, and is expected to seek a further five-year mandate.

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In his press conference in Mwanza on August 5, Mr Wenje said he was looking to continue his “upward trajectory” within the party by becoming Mr Mbowe’s “righthand man”.

But observers have noted that he made no mention of vying for the chairmanship itself, leading to strong suggestions that his sudden emergence as a direct rival to Mr Lissu within the party may have been orchestrated by Mr Mbowe himself.

Though not as high-profile a personality as other leading Tanzanian opposition politicians, Mr Wenje’s record includes a stint as MP for Nyamagana constituency in Mwanza between 2010 and 2015. He is currently Chadema’s Lake Victoria Zone chairman, covering Mwanza, Kagera and Geita regions—a seat he retained in the zonal elections back in May.

The 45-year-old’s political stock was also boosted when he joined Mr Lissu and another Chadema heavyweight, Godbless Lema, in going into exile after the much-maligned 2020 General Election, which saw several opposition legislators, including Mr Mbowe, losing their seats to CCM opponents.

The trio only returned to the country in early 2023 after President Suluhu offered them clemency as part of her strategy to reopen the political space that had been ruthlessly squeezed in the Magufuli era.

Mr Mbowe, meanwhile, has been accused of overstaying as Chadema’s leader after assuming the role in 2004 and remaining at the helm across four different CCM-sponsored presidents.

In that time, he has seen off several challengers such as Zitto Kabwe and Wilbroad Slaa, who were eased out of the party after appearing to question his hold onto the throne.