Nairobi — It must take great insouciance for someone in President Jakaya Kikwete's position to sleep well at night these days, but if the man is even slightly worried, he's not showing it.

The Tanzanian chattering classes are clearly growing more and more restive as times passes, with too many people now saying out loud that the country is in a state of drift, that it lacks leadership.

Were these sentiments being expressed by the official political opposition or the media, they would amount to little, seeing as it is the habit of the opposition to, well, oppose; and as for the media, what can one say of them?

But misgivings are now to be heard from unexpected quarter, such as the clergy -- not habitually given to outspokenness -- ruling party stalwarts and the proverbial man in the street.

When, a few months ago, the Catholic Church issued a document urging the faithful to shun corrupt politicians and to choose graft-free leaders, a hue and cry arose in some quarters in government, alleging that this was a case of blatant church interference in politics.

Indeed, if one had seriously wanted to castigate church leaders for poking their noses into politics, one could have pointed out that, in 2005, at the height of the electoral campaigns, a senior cleric stated, ex cathedra, that Kikwete was God's own choice for president.

Obviously the earlier statement was agreeable to ruling circles because it guaranteed a few extra votes, though nobody seemed to worry about God's reputation should Kikwete eventually disappoint.

Last week, a seminar organised by the Mwalimu Nyerere Foundation became another forum from which the president's performance was pilloried, with participants, among them senior ruling party people, pulling no punches.

Joseph Butiku, chief executive of the Foundation, and erstwhile senior aide to the late Mwalimu Nyerere, called on the president to free himself from the grip of "thieving" business people and provide proper leadership.

Similar calls were made by other participants in the three-day seminar moderated by Salim Ahmed Salim, chair of the Foundation.

It has been suggested that the deliberations at the seminar be allowed to percolate to the grassroots, where "real Tanzanians" grapple with the grim realities of daily sub-dollar existence.

A national conference has also been mooted to craft a national consensus and vision for the future.

The leadership of the ruling party itself looks increasingly at odds, constantly at each other's throats and with so many factions it's surprising it is still holding together.

The only reason such a quarrelsome crowd has not completely fallen is the access it still has to government, very useful as a source of both largesse and sanction.

Even some of Kikwete's immediate lieutenants, at various informal gatherings in Dar es Salaam, do not seem to mind who hears them say how ineffectual he is as a leader.

He has also appeared ineffectual in dealing with the crisis in Zanzibar, so that when Seif Shariff Hamad of CUF and Zanzibar President Amani Abeid Karume decided to bury the hatched the other day, it was not clear whether the Union president had been involved or even informed.

This on an issue he had earlier promised to handle personally.

The president of Zanzibar -- whose ascent to the Zanizibar presidency nine years ago owed everything to CCM's pays political machinery -- nowadays pays visibly scant attention to Kikwete, skipping Cabinet meetings and other important events without explanation.

The media, civil society and the man in the street are calling on the president to cut back on his frequent foreign trips both on account of the expense involved and the need for him to spend more time solving domestic problems instead of acting like he was the foreign minister, especially now that a real threat of famine looms in many parts of the country.

Jenerali Ulimwengu is a political commentator and civil-society activist based in Dar es Salaam.