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Ten presidential candidates to bless or confuse voters?
2005-08-15 07:49:13
By Hillary Joseph
Political Bubbles went on sabbatical leave, tremendously missing you all. A lot of things have happened in between on the political plane in this our beloved United Republic of which he would have liked to share with you.
Alas, do we have the time and space? Perhaps for a few issues like the nominations of prospective Members of Parliament in the next Bunge in the special seats category through Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM).
I think it is worth reminding each other that we have now less than three months before we go to the polls on October 30 to elect a new government.
We have eighteen registered political parties and, on paper, any one of them may win the people’s mandate to form the next government.
But the reality on the ground tells every serious person that there are only a couple of political parties in real contention for both the State House and the Bunge.
This time around we are going to be blessed (or confused, depending on how you look at it) with more than ten Tanzanians seeking the topmost post on the land.
Equally significant, we are going to have, for the first time in the history of our United Republic, a woman contestant for the presidency.
Real democracy at work, wouldn’t you say?
Of course, whether or not they all possess the qualities and capabilities of leading this country will be judged by the people in the ballot box.
What we can do is to warn them to be careful with their choices of the people who are supposed to represent their ideas, views and demands in the august House.
The bad part of it is that if we make a mistake, we will have to grin and bear it for the next five years until the next general elections in 2010.
Sorry for the digression, but I can’t resist the temptation to say a few words regarding strident allegations by one local weekly newspaper, which claimed to have discovered the secret of the unprecedented large number of presidential candidates in the forthcoming general elections.
The paper claimed that the large number of political parties putting up presidential candidates has been influenced by pledges from international donor institutions that they will grant 200 million/- to every political party that will put up a presidential candidate to facilitate easy reach to the people in this vast country.
It further claimed that some of those who collected presidential forms from the National Electoral Commission (NEC) with pageantry and some of those who collected the forms quietly have failed to go and collect signatures of 200 sponsors from the regions because disbursement of funds from the ’donors’ is expected early next month.
If this is true, it will be a mockery of democracy and I think it will be fair to suggest that political parties whose leaders will fail to return the presidential forms duly filled in should be struck off the list of registered political parties.
But back to CCM nominations of prospective Parliamentary candidates. Preferential voting is over and we have witnessed the fall of prominent party stalwarts and the rise of new faces, some of them popular names in other fields other than politics.
In short, the list is intriguing.
I am dying to know what the higher organs of the party will do with the list on nominees.
The National Executive Committee of the party (NEC) has the mandate to endorse them if it is satisfied that the nominees are, indeed, the true choice of the people.
The NEC also has the mandate to reject a nominee if it finds out that there was foul play during the nomination process and so replace the nominee with another who had came second or even third at the nomination. It is a tricky exercise.
True, we need change, we need young blood who will match the new vigour, new momentum and new drive, but certainly not at any cost.
The new momentum must go hand in glove with vision and direction, the new vigour must be accompanied with commitment and knowledge, and the new drive should go together with capability and diligence.
I hope those who constitute the nomination organs take into consideration that they are nominating prospective councillors and members of Parliament who would be making decisions that will be impacting on the daily lives of the people.
They will be enacting laws and by-laws in their respective sittings and explaining the same to the people they represent.
District councils and Parliament are places where serious development issues are discussed and guidelines for implementing decisions are issued.
It therefore calls for knowledgeable councillors and MPs who not only contribute effectively to debates in their respective houses, but also decipher the content and implications of the budgets on the people.
Do we see these qualities and capabilities in the prospective councillors and MPs nominated by Chama Cha Mapinduzi? For it is one thing to be a popular musician, or radio announcer, or business tycoon, or lecturer or a preacher, but quite another to be a councillor or a Member of Parliament.
By the way, I thought we had said that the clergy should refrain from taking active part in politics. What are preachers doing seeking nomination in the special seats category?
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