Chadema files constitutional cases

What you need to know:

  • Specifically, they are questioning the legality of presidential appointees like the district executive directors (Deds) to also act as returning officers during elections.

Dar es Salaam. The main opposition political party has filed two constitutional cases through which they are questioning the legality of political conducts in the country.

Specifically, they are questioning the legality of presidential appointees like the district executive directors (Deds) to also act as returning officers during elections.

Since the president is elected out of the contesting political parties, taking his (the president’s) appointee as the returning officer creates a playing field that is grossly slanted in favour of the ruling party at any given time, they argue.

Chadema’s Ilala District chairman Makongoro Mahanga told journalists that his party has failed to field lawyers to work on the cases directly. This, he said, was because Chadema’s lawyers were always busy with countless court cases that have been filed against party cadres across the country. As such, he said, the party has decided to seek assistance from the Tanganyika Law Society (TLS), Tanzania Human Rights Defenders Coalition and the Legal and Human Rights Centre (LHRC) who will work on the cases for free. “We have started with two but in a period of two months we will have filed at least ten cases. So far, we have filed cases number 4 and 6 of 2018 of,” he said.

In one of the cases, the party is questioning the constitutionality of a ban on political rallies while the other is about the right to vote and handling of the electoral process.

Lawyer Fatma Karume from TLS will be working on one of the cases.

She said yesterday that she will undertake the exercise in the most possible professional manner.

“Article 74 (14) of the Constitution of the United Republic of Tanzania prohibits any person involved with the election process from being a politician, but what is happening in this country is that some of the president’s appointees, who occupy public offices as DEDs, are party cadres and we have enough evidence to prove that,” she said.

She said it made little sense for people to go voting while the outcomes will be determined by a few people.

Mr Bob Chacha Wangwe who is a complaint in the case involving the right to vote and the management of the electoral process, said Tanzania’s laws give party agents to protect their followers’ votes.

Chadema claims that the Police have been given the authority to disrupt the opposition party’s gatherings, and one such a scenario, they said, is when police dispersed the party supporters who were demonstrating over their election rights, a situation that cascaded into the killing of Ms Akwilina Akwiline, the National Institute of Transport student who was hit by a live bullet fired by the police.