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CUF Reps protest CCM decision on Isles` future
2008-04-01 09:06:33
By Mwinyi Sadallah, Zanzibar
Opposition Members of the House of Representatives yesterday protested the weekend decision by the CCM National Executive Committee (NEC) to suspend the endorsement of plans to have a coalition government in Zanzibar.
The legislators, whose number was not immediately established but all members of the Civic United Front (CUF), expressed their displeasure by storming out of the House with the morning session in progress.
Their reaction was in response to the refusal by the NEC meeting held at Butiama to buy wholesale a proposal resulting from the long-running `muafaka` (reconciliation) talks involving the ruling party and CUF.
``They (CCM members) were called to Butiama and we (CUF members) were called to Mtendeni,`` noted a visibly rattled Information, Culture and Sports shadow minister Najma Halfan snappily shortly after the session.
CUF Communication and Human Rights deputy director Salum Bimani confirmed that the party`s officials and legislators had met at their Mtendeni Street head offices.
He said the meeting, chaired by Soud Yussuf Mgeni, was convened following mounting pressure from the party`s organs that ``wondered`` why the lawmakers were not storming out of the session to protest the decision by CCM`s Butiama meeting on the political future of the Isles.
``We received information from different corners of the country pressing CUF members to walk out of the House. We subsequently met in order to come up with a united stand on the matter,`` he added.
Bimani explained that the party was planning to issue a statement on the decision by the two-day Butiama meeting of the powerful CCM committee.
The legislators walked out when the House was debating a bill on the registration of engineers, architects and valuers that was tabled by Isles Water, Works, Minerals and Land minister Mansour Yussuf Himid.
House secretary Ibrahim Mzee said the opposition legislators had not lodged any official complaints in connection with their walkout by late yesterday.
``It may be that they left in a hurry so that they could attend to unidentified party (CUF) activities outside the House,`` he observed, without hinting on what measures could follow.
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