Fallout within Tanzania’s ruling party as former prime minister is eliminated from nomination race

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Secretary of Ideology and Publicity, Nape Nnauye speaking to journalists after the end of the central committee session in Dodoma . Photo|Edwin Mjwahuzi 

Dodoma. The central committee of the ruling party, CCM, finished its meeting at midnight and came up with five names that would be seconded to the national executive committee for voting today, Saturday.

Ideology and Publicity secretary Nape Nnauye told reporters soon after the meeting that the names of the five aspirants approved by the party would not be made public but will be taken directly to the NEC meeting scheduled to start at 10am today, Saturday.

“Because the nomination process is ongoing we will not disclose the names of five aspirants, which will be taken directly to the NEC meeting for voting to get three names. The three names will then be taken to the national congress later in the afternoon,” Mr Nnauye noted.

However sources privy to proceedings of the meeting said the names of five approved presidential aspirants include January Makamba, Asha Rose Migiro, Amina Salum Ali, John Magufuli and Bernard Membe.

This was later confirmed when CCM tweeted the five names in its official twitter handle (@ccm_tanzania ). The twitter was also reflected in the party’s website ww.ccm.org.tz.

The fallout

Immediately after Mr Nnauye’s media briefing three members of the central committee who attended the meeting- Dr Emmanuel Nchimbi, Adam Kimbisa and Sophia Simba- told journalists that they opposed the nomination procedures that were used to come up with the five names because the procedures were in violation of the party’s constitution.

The visibly agitated Nchimbi said the CCM constitution demands that the names of all aspirants who returned nomination forms be tabled in the central committee meeting, which then vets them and comes up with five names.

But it seems the Ethics and Security committee meeting which met in the afternoon on Friday did the vetting and came up with few names.

“We hereby declare that we do not agree on the decisions of the meetings because the party’s regulations and constitution, which say that the central committee is the first meeting to start vetting aspirants in the nomination process, have been violated,” Mr Nchimbi noted.

He added; “We informed the meeting that we do not agree with the decision reached because it also violates a section of the constitution that says the central committee would give special consideration to the front-runner or front runners in the nomination contest.”

The three central committee members are believed to be supporters of former Prime Minister Edward Lowassa, who has been the clear front runner from the beginning of the process. Mr Lowassa who resigned as Prime Minister in the wake of the Richmond scandal in February 2008 attracted huge crowds in his campaign events and collected hundreds of thousands of endorsements from party members instead of the 400 required to qualify for nomination.