Clerk of the Zanzibar House of Representatives, Mzee
Ibrahim has stressed the importance of electing Constitutional Assembly
members before putting in place a commission to coordinate the drawing
up of the Union constitution.
He was speaking during a seminar for
Members of the House of Representatives on the bill for the Union
Constitution held at the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Sports hall in
Zanzibar at the weekend.
He said it was important that members of
the Assembly are elected by the people and that consideration is given
to ensuring equality in the ratio of representation between the Mainland
and Zanzibar instead of using MPs and Members of the Zanzibar House of
Representatives.
“We need to hold elections for a
constitutional assembly before the commission begins collecting views
and opinions on the new constitution," said the secretary.
He argued that the current MPs and
Representatives would be biased by their political ideologies instead of
putting national interest first in the formulation of the new Union
Constitution.
He said the system that has been
suggested for selecting members of the Constitutional Assembly would
give Zanzibar a smaller representation compared to Tanzania Mainland.
He said out of the 554 members proposed
for the Constitutional Assembly including Representatives and Members
from the Civic Organisations, Zanzibar would have only 195 while
Tanzania Mainland would have 359.
He argued that since Zanzibar had entered
the Union with Tanganyika as a sovereign country, it was important to
draw up a better ratio of representation from both sides of the Union.
The secretary proposed further that it
was important for the Constitutional Assembly to be modeled on the East
African Community Parliament whereby each member state is represented by
nine MPs regardless of the size of their respective populations.
“We need to embark on the elections of
the Constitutional Assembly before formulating a commission that would
coordinate opinions on the new constitution," said the Secretary.
The Minister for Agriculture and Natural
Resources, Yusuf Himid, called for the amendment of the article barring
the Zanzibar Electoral Commission (ZEC) from announcing the results of
the opinion polls. According to the bill the announcement of the poll
results would be done by the National Electoral Commission (NEC).
“This could only cause problems here," said the Minister.
He said when it came to discussing
problems of the Union it was important to let the people speak freely in
order to tap all views and opinions before making decisions.
Kwamtipura constituency Representative,
Hamza Hassan Juma (CCM) said the Bill for the constitutional change was
positive because it had taken into consideration opinions of Zanzibari
people.
He said it was important to continue respecting the old constitution as people discuss the need for a new one.
Ziwani constituency Representative,
Rashid Seif (CUF) said all matters that would be voted for should be
made transparent so that the commission can implement its duties without
problems.
“There should also be a clear schedule on the implementation of the different tasks by the Commission," he said.
Mtambile Representative, Mohamed Haji
Khalid (CUF) said the Union between Tanganyika and Zanzibar was illegal
because there was never a time when it received the consent of the House
of Representatives.
He therefore suggested that a national
referendum should be organised so as to hear out people who want the
Union and those who oppose it.
He cautioned further that Zanzibar was at
the point of making a suicidal decision because most of its young
population was yet to be registered in the permanent voters' register.
For his part, the Speaker of the House of
Representatives, Pandu Ameir Kificho, said it was important to address
problems facing the Union to help pave the ground for the formulation of
the Union Constitution.
Earlier, the Zanzibar Minister for
Constitution and Justice, Abubakar Khamis Bakari, said the bill
preparation enjoyed great cooperation by leaders from both sides of the
Union.
SOURCE:
THE GUARDIAN
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