CCM Central Committee members from Zanzibar (left to right) Haroun Ali Suleiman, Abdallah Shaaban Ramadhan, Muhammad Seif Khatib and Pandu Ameir Kificho wait for the start of the extraordinary CC meeting in Dodoma on Saturday. PHOTO | EDWIN MJWAHUZI
Dodoma. CCM embarks on a series of meetings this week that will culminate in the naming on July 12 of the party’s candidates for the Union and Zanzibar presidencies in the forthcoming General Election.
The attention of CCM and opposition supporters alike will for the next few days be focused on Dodoma, where the meetings will take place in the next six days.
Thirty-eight aspirants, including four women, are seeking to be nominated to stand as the party’s Union presidential candidate and succeed Mr Jakaya Kikwete, who will retire after the October 25 General Election. They are among 42 CCM members who had collected nomination forms from the party’s headquarters in Dodoma during a one-month period. Four aspirants failed to beat last Thursday’s deadline for returning forms.
In contrast, Zanzibar President Ali Mohammed Shein was the only CCM member who picked up and returned nomination forms in Zanzibar. He is likely to be endorsed to seek a second and final five-year term (see separate story on Page 3).
Political analysts view this year’s nomination of the Union presidential candidate as one of the most competitive in CCM’s recent history.
CCM stalwarts have in recent weeks been working to ensure that the party remains united after naming its candidate next Sunday amid ominous predictions by detractors of a devastating split that could cost the party victory and end its status as Africa’s longest reigning independence party.
The Ethics Committee and the Secretariat will from today to Wednesday scrutinise aspirants and their nomination forms to see if they meet requirements for the next vetting stages.
According to a timetable released in Dodoma, the Central Committee (CC) and National Executive Committee (NEC) would meet on Thursday and Friday, respectively, before the party’s congress convenes on Saturday and Sunday.
The Secretarial will largely confine itself to nomination forms submitted by aspirants and see whether they meet conditions set by the party.
It is the decision of the Ethics Committee that is being eagerly awaited.
Chaired by CCM vice chairman (Mainland) Philip Mangula, the committee is expected to compile a dossier on each of the candidates and decide whether any rules were broken in the run-up to the nomination process.
About a dozen of the aspirants were last year reprimanded and put on year-long surveillance by the Mangula team for allegedly engaging in premature campaigns and committing other violations, including bribing members to raise their profiles ahead of the nomination process.
0 Response to "CCM meets to select its candidates"
Post a Comment