Inter-Party Defection: Does Tanzania Need Anti-Defection Law?

In spite of a manifested increase in the number of legislative representatives who defect from one party to the other in Tanzania, there has been scanty literature to understand why this massive defection taking place now. This research article embarked to fill this gap of knowledge. The authors presented empirical findings obtained in Tanzanian political context whereby defectors were purposively sampled for in-depth understanding of a phenomenon. A total of thirty (30) key informants from different registered political parties were prudently chosen to participate in the study. The results of this research revealed that there various political reasons that influences inter-party defection amongst politicians in Tanzania; these include, personal interests, intra-party conflict, national interests, and ethnic group interests. Thus, the study recommends to policy makers and other political stakeholders to consider adoption of anti-defection law so that to regulate or control un necessary defection done by sitting legislators or representatives. By doing so it will help to protect unreasonable utilization of national scanty resources for repeatedly by-elections.