Dodoma. Ruling CCM was yesterday accused of violating the Constitution Review (Amendment) Act, 2013 by sticking to its guns on the two-government Union in the new Katiba writing process.
A Member of the Constituent Assembly (MCA), Mr Ismail Jussa Ladhu, said this when tabling a report of minority side of the CA Committee Number Six on Chapters One and Six of the second Draft Constitution.
The law puts in place an entire procedure of obtaining the second Draft Constitution, including the formation of the Constitutional Review Commission (CRC) tasked to collect views from the people to prepare the Draft, he said.
Institutions and District Constituent Assemblies were then created to discuss the first Draft Constitution ready for the CRC to come up with the second Draft.
“We’re surprised to see the two-tier Union government structure proposal is debated in this House. Where does it come from? Isn’t it the views of the people that are supposed to be in the second Draft Constitution?” he asked.
Mr Jussa said the two-tier Union government model proposal could only be deliberated on if a fresh commission is tasked to collect views of the people pertaining to it, which is not stipulated in the second Draft Constitution.
But more important, he said, is that the self-proclaimed majority MCAs, who are actually the minority outside the House, accuse proponents of the three-tier Union model of inviting Sultan (Seyyid) Jamshid (bin Abdullah) once again.
This is a serious allegation, he said. “I ask myself, on January 12, 2000, at Aman Stadium before former President Benjamin Mkapa; the former Zanzibar President, Dr Salmin Amour, pardoned Sultan Jamshid and welcomed him back if he was ready.
Whose party was Dr Salmin,” he queried.He (Dr Salmin) promised to give him (Sultan) every support he needed to return to Zanzibar. The statement, which has not been refuted to date, shows that if there was anyone intending to welcome back the Sultanate, it was CCM, he said.
If whoever proposes the three-tier Union model invites the Sultanate; did the former Zanzibar President, Mr Abood Jumbe, who demanded the same in 1984, intended to invite Sultan Jamshid?
