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Opposition leaders must resign for democracy`s sake
2007-05-17 09:25:10
By Chris joe
I demand that the top leadership of the so-called opposition parties should resign forthwith.
I mean national chairmen and secretaries of the opposition parties, especially Civic United Front, Tanzania Labour Party, Chama Cha Demokrasia na Maendeleo, National Convention and Reconstruction Reforms should resign yesterday.
Who do they think they are? Aren’t they ashamed of themselves for contradicting themselves each passing day?
Don`t they have any civilised agenda for the people of this country?
Don`t they have any political advisers? Surely, we are sick and tired of their see-saw game.
Don`t they see that people have less respect for them now after cheating them time and again about forming a united front?
How many times have they wasted journalists` time with their numerous press conferences to announce their ‘coming together` only to denounce their `coming together` the next morning.
It is so humiliating and disgusting to us members of these political parties when our leaders act like people who have never seen the inside of a classroom.
It is humiliating to us members and supporters of these parties when our leaders act like comedians without a proper theme.
These people, I mean our leaders of the opposition camp, force us to question their seriousness on the political scene. They seem to have no direction.
They seem to be sitting on the wings waiting for the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi to make mistakes so that they pounce on it and try to blow it out of proportion, shouting at the top of their voices like the empty tins they are.
We are tired of their fire-brigade type of operations. Most of the time they are dead quiet, but when they detect that the CCM government has goofed somehow on one aspect or another, even remotely so, they bounce to life trying to make it seem like the government has committed some horrendous crime.
This is when they pretend to come together to speak with one voice, giving misleading impression that they are united.
And to sort of give credit to such wrong perceptions, they announce that now they have formed some coalition.
And to fool us the more, they stand together and smile into the camera, holding hands.
However, as soon as the depart, each to his or her camp, they all and severally deny whatever each of them might have said, with the excuse that the media people misunderstood them.
This, to me, seems to mean that the leaders do not first seek the mandate of their members and supporters on forming a coalition.
That is why when they are blasted by their members they rush to deny it.
So that when Augustine Mrema, Prof. Ibrahim Lipumba, James Mbatia, Wilbroad Slaa ,most often Freeman Mbowe is conveniently absent, came together a week or so ago and announced their forming a coalition ahead of the amendment of the Constitution which they have always blamed for not allowing them to form a Kenyan-like coalition, many people reacted with indifference.
What is so special this time that we should take them seriously? Only a week or so earlier they made similar announcement, but soon they all denied the announcement claiming that the press misunderstood them.
What brought the gentlemen from the opposition camp together this time was the University students` boycott of classes demanding full loans claiming that most students came from poor families and could not afford the 40 per cent, the boycott which led to university authorities closing down the university and sending the students home.
Our leaders saw it as an issue to lock horns with the government about, and they came to their support, giving the government 21 days to recall all the students, otherwise they would take the matter to the courts of law.
They said the students were right about the inability of some parents to foot the 40 per cent bill and so the students were right to demand issuance of full loans to them and that the boycott was the right course to make such demands.
I go along with the opposition leaders’ support for the students in demanding full loans, but I don’t agree with the method used in making the demands.
I think it a crude and disrespectful way of making the demands, especially considering the fact the government had appreciated the anomaly with the President himself promising to solve the matter by August or September this year.
Above all the President and his government had made firm commitment that no student would be sent home for not being able to pay for his or her studies.
Therefore, I take it that the opposition merely used the students boycott as their political platform. In this I have no problem with the opposition.
It is their right and it happens in all democracies. What I am against is their use of such trivial issues to want to make us believe that they are now ready to form a coalition.
Let them take their time and when they are really ready for the coalition, they should go back to their members and get their mandate before they make the announcement.
One thing they should remember: TIME is running out for them. Their individual greed is an impediment to the country’s democracy.
They have failed us for more than ten years. They should now resign.
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