Freedom parties vow to improve people's welfare

Dar es Salaam. A high level meeting between the Communist Party of China (CPC) and African freedom parties concluded on Wednesday July 18 with four major consensuses on how the latter can strengthen them.

The dialogue, which commenced on Monday and drew attendance from thirty-six political parties from forty African countries, was the first to be held in Africa.

Speaking during the meeting the participants were of the view that there is a laxity in liberation parties, when it comes to improvement of people’s lives hence suggested four things, which must be done to liberate the people from the clutches of poverty.

They include the need to devote more efforts to explore development paths in line with the specific national conditions and the need for political parties to play their role to be the leading forces in the course of national development.

Others are the need for the CPC and African freedom parties setting a shining example of a new type of party to party relations based on mutual learning and benefits and the taking of new strides to move further the China-Africa cooperation to a new era so as to build closer communities with a shared future.

In his closing remarks, Zanzibar Second Vice President Seif Ali Idd told the participants that parties can play a major role in the efforts to economic liberation.

He said, “This is because the journey won’t be successful if we don’t wage war against corruption, ensuring accountability, good governance and ensuring leadership that produces positive development for our countries and their people.”

He said African freedom parties have every reason to learn from their CPC counterpart, which under its leadership China has registered an impressive economic growth to be the world-largest second economy within a short period.

“Only if we keep on implementing all these resolutions we’ll undoubtedly achieve in our efforts to bring about development to our people,” said Mr Idd, who represented the President of the Revolutionary Government of Zanzibar, Dr Ali Mohamed Shein.

Dr Nafie Ali Nafie, the secretary general of the Council of African Political Parties said that African political parties are key institutions in the achievement and development of both regional and international integrations and cooperation’s.

“Those failures have caused far-reaching resentment and civil conflicts resulting in instabilities,” he said.

Dr Nafie said that the challenges facing African countries today are easy to tackle comparing to those facing the West.

Representing the Chinese government during the closing of the session Ms Xu Lyu Ping, deputy minister of international docket said that the dialogue conducted during the session can help in framing of various development plans to improve the people’s lives.

She reiterated the overriding conclusion of the dialogue that political parties have a significant role to play in bringing about national development saying that the African political parties cannot escape this responsibility.