Special Seats winners ’are not MPs yet’
 
2005-08-13 08:09:59
By Guardian Reporter

	Speaker of the National Assembly Pius Msekwa

Winners of Special Seats nominations are not MPs yet, Speaker of the National Assembly Pius Msekwa clarified yesterday.

Msekwa told The Guardian by telephone that the number of votes each party garnered in constituency elections would determine the composition of Special Seats in the next Parliament.

’’According to the constitution and other laws of the land, it is the proportion of votes each party gets throughout the country that determines the allocation of Special Seats,’’ he said.

There were 75 Special Seats in the National Assembly, he explained and added that the number of seats allocated to a party would depend on the total number of votes each constituency winner garnered.

There are 232 constituencies for the Union Parliament, 50 of which are in Zanzibar.

Special Seat MPs category is worked out by the National Electoral Commission (NEC) in relation to the total number of votes cast throughout the country.

The Speaker said that the Proportional Representation clause passed by the 14th session of Parliament defined how the number of Special Seats each political party gets based on the performance of the parties at constituency level.

He added that whenever an MP in a constituency was elected unopposed, the votes considered were those of the presidential aspirant.

’’Before NEC goes through all these steps, short-listed party aspirants cannot automatically be considered to be MPs,’’ he said.

It was reported yesterday that three women, two of them journalists, had made it to the next Parliament after winning Special Seats slots in the ongoing Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) nominations.

They are the Minister of Community Development, Gender and Children, Dr Asha Rose Migiro, who was reported to have retained her seat, journalist Lucy Mayenga of Business Times and radio personality Amina Chifupa.

Msekwa said ’’What is going on at the moment are just internal arrangements by political parties to gauge the proportion of the Special Seats they can get. NEC will make the final decision in November after the general election.’’

Political parties in the country are currently nominating candidates for civic and parliamentary seats in preparation for the general election scheduled for October 30.

CCM is nominating its candidates based on Women, Youths, Disabled, NGOs, Trade Unions, Universities and Parents categories.

• SOURCE: Guardian