CCM Vice Chairman (Mainland) Abdulrahman Kinana has revealed the party’s secret to winning an election, saying putting in place good policies and fielding strong candidates was the key to success and not depending on electoral reforms as it is believed by opposition leaders.

Speaking to Dodoma residents, Kinana said there are countries which demanded constitutional and electoral reforms for decades and managed to get them but did not win elections.

“We know Tanzanians need a new constitution that is a fact, but the opposition party—Chadema want the constitution now which is not the way things are supposed to be, we will all sit down and agree to calls for constitutional reforms,” he said.

Kinana said the party was open to criticism saying however that it was not ready for allegations which the opposition party has levelled against them that it was hijacking the political reform negotiations.

He said among the issues which were taken to the negotiating team by some political parties was that the President should not be involved in the appointment of electoral commission members, a point which CCM supported.

“There is no issue which was brought forward which has not been taken into consideration, because in our research i have not seen any country in the world where the President is not involved in the appointment of members but, here in Tanzania we want to sideline the Head of State,” he said.

In addition, he said what Chadema was discussing mainly was the issue of the new Constitution and they tried to make this issue be discussed between them and CCM and not to involve other opposition parties which is not the right way.

“Their main argument was that they are the main opposition party and other parties should be kept aside, which is not right,” he said.

On the Union of Tanganyika and Zanzibar, Kinana said that it was an exemplary one despite going through challenges, but it has survived due to the foundations which it was built on.

"Let's not allow Tanzanians to be divided by regions, because if we do that, we will later be divided by religion, Tanzanians should continue to reject this argument,” he said.