Dr Alexander Makulilo
Well placed observers say the wish to field unitary parliamentary
candidates for each constituency was also contributing to the
difficulties as these too need to be resolved before the four parties
involved can reach a consensus on their presidential flag bearer.
Analysts made observations yesterday in different occasions in a
survey by The Guardian, seeking their sentiments on why reaching a
consensus on the presidential flag bearer in Ukawa was an uphill task.
Picking a task for the combined opposition major parties was
supposed to wound up at the time that CCM would be finishing its
business in Dodoma.
Dr Alexander Makulilo, a senior lecturer at the Department of
Political Science and Public Administration at The Hill, said that under
the country’s law governing political parties (Political Parties Act,
No.5 of 1992) the parties cannot form such an alliance,
Even if they had a single presidential candidate nominated and
fielded in the presidential race he or she would still be recognized as
the candidate of the party from which he or she was picked, he pointed
out.
“The problem originates from the legal framework of the country
that does not allow the alliance of political parties. The formation of
alliance by separate political parties is not supported by law in
Tanzania,” he stated.
In case one political party decides to support another party in the
general elections (presidential, parliamentary and councilors
elections) it will be doing so at its own peril as the National
Electoral Commission (NEC) and the Office of the Registrar of Political
Parties will only recognize the party that fielded the specific
candidates when it comes to issues of allocation of seats for Special
Seats MPs and amounts of subsidy to be offered on the basis of election
results as a whole.
Putting his explanations into context, Dr Makulilo said for the
opposition coalition to be recognised under the country’s legal
framework, the four parties within it were supposed to be deregistered
and instead register a single new party at the Office of Registrar of
Political Parties.
“Ukawa is just an alliance that exists as a political platform.
They support each other informally after coming up with a Memorandum of
Understanding (MOU) at an earlier point,” he said, referring to the time
they decided to walk out of the Constitutional Review Conference mid
last year.
The don explicitly stated that there is no possibility for one
political party within Ukawa to provide a presidential candidate and
another one provide a running mate, since both the presidential
candidate and the running mate must come from the same political party,
on the basis of the Act.
Ukawa is alliance consisting of Chadema, the Civic United Front
(CUF), NCCR –Mageuzi and the National League for Democracy (NLD). The
four parties made a resolve to field a single presidential candidate in
the late October general elections.
They also plan to field common parliamentary candidates for each
constituency and candidates for the position of ward councilors as sell.
Technically the legal framework is the challenge that UKAWA faces,
Dr. Makulilo stated, noting that this aneeds to be reformed in order to
allow the formation of such alliance.
In Kenya such alliance is legally viable, in which case it makes
elections more democratic as parties can make last minute arrangements
for poll purposes and they stand as such in law and election outcomes.
According to Dr Makulilo, the delay of UKAWA leaders to nominate a
candidate for the presidency is not something they can be criticized
about but the legal framework which puts barriers to the parties.
He ventured to suggest that since the ruling CCM is the common
adversary of the various opposition parties, limitations in the legal
framework to forestall the formation of such an alliance helps the
ruling party as it weakens the room for maneuver of opposition parties.
As the law is itself the main barrier for UKAWA to get ahead in the
business of nominations and allocations of who should run in the
various polls, other political challenges can scarcely be solved without
this limitation being lifted first.
Harold Sungusia, the director of advocacy and reform in the Legal
and Human Rights Centre (LHRC), said that attaining five per cent of all
presidential votes cast was the basic criteria for a party to obtain
Special Seats in the legislature.
“The parties that nominate presidential candidates and the required level of votes qualify to obtain Special Seats,” he said.
According to Article 66, 67 and 78 of the 1977 Constitution (and as
amended), the special seats shall be allocated in accordance with the
number of presidential votes. Special seats will not be more than 30
percent of all legislative seats in the Union legislature and 40 percent
in the Zanzibar House of Representatives.
The number of special seats is not associated with the number of
constituencies as votes to pick legislators are not considered for the
special seats but presidential votes, he said.
In the current situation arising from the legal framework, a
political party getting more presidential votes will have more Special
Seats MPs. Therefore the one that brings up the presidential candidate
shall take all the special seats upon attaining a certain percentage,
which cannot be split between the coalition partners.
The number of constituencies won by a political party in a general
election determines the level of subsidy payments that party will be
entitled to in the legislative period that follows, where the number of
special seat MPs is also included in entitlement to subsidies.
The top advocacy official said the law as it stands was designed to undermine solidarity among opposition parties.
The main challenge in Ukawa is how constituencies can be
distributed, since the smaller coalition partners, NCCR-Mageuzi and NLD
seek to obtain optimal common candidacy opportunities as can be
realistically expected taking account of influence of the bigger
partners, Chadema and CUF.
Deus Kibamba, the chairman of the Constitutional Forum said that
Ukawa made the decision to field a single presidential candidate and
parliamentary contestants in each constituency rather late in the day.
“Originally Ukawa was formed to fight for a better constitution
when the Constituent Assembly was deliberating on the Second Draft in
Dodoma. The idea of uniting forces for the general elections came rather
late,” he stated.
The strategy to implement the single candidacy idea especially for
parliamentary elections was supposed to be charted out by an intra-party
technical committee after thorough consultations and a field survey to
find out which party has a good number of followers in each
constituency.
“Party presence is an important factor to determine which political
party candidate is to be fielded in a particular constituency.
Carrying out consultations and a field survey, especially in
constituencies where no Ukawa party has a sitting legislator may not be
easy as time is not their side,” he summarily asserted.
Another mistake that Ukawa committed was to make an alliance the
property of top leaders of those parties, without having involved party
members right from the beginning, the noted activist added.
SOURCE:
THE GUARDIAN
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