Proposed changes to political parties law trashed

Dar es Salaam. Yesterday, a half-a-dozen civil society organisations (CSOs) denounced the proposed amendments to Tanzania’s Political Parties Act.

This appears to be an intensification of pressure against the amendment Bill which has been drawing fierce criticism from different quarters.

The six CSOs are the Media Council of Tanzania (MCT), the Legal and Human Rights Centre (LHRC), Twaweza, the Tanganyika Law Society (TLS), the Centre for Strategic Litigation, and the Zanzibar-based Journalists for Development Reporting. In their joint statement to members of the press, the heads of the CSOs said the bill is ominous to the country’s competitive democracy, and goes against the very concept of multiparty politics. “There is no way that this Bill – if passed – is going to ensure political equality among the country’s political parties,” Mr Aidan Eyakuze of Twaweza stated.

Among the sections of the Bill with which the CSOs expressed discontent include those that give the political party registrar the mandate to meddle with political parties’ internal affairs; restrict the right to freedom of expression and access to information; restrict political party mergers and coalitions.

Also opposed is the Bill’s disregard for representation of youth, women and people with disabilities in the areas of party membership and decision-making.

Changes which the CSOs think need to be made to the proposed Bill – as well as the changes which they have submitted to a parliamentary committee that hears views on the Bill from various stakeholders – include amendment of Section 5(b) of the Bill to limit the registrar’s power to directly call for information from political party members.

The CSO leaders also call for removal of all references to penalties from the main body of the law, and detail them in specific Section of the law to be titled ‘Offences and Penalties.’

Furthermore, they want Sections 3(a) and 5(g) amended to allow the registrar to provide guidelines for civic education and regulation.

Again, Section 6(a) should be amended in such a way that it allows political parties to mobilise citizens into action in seeking to influence government opinion.

Finally, the CSOs called for overall changes in the Bill that would allow political party mergers as a matter of course, as well as removal of the provisions that allow the relevant minister to make regulations on political party coalitions

Commenting on the implications of the Bill in its present format, a lawyer from the LHRC, Mr Fulgence Massawe, said the first victims of the Bill are undoubtedly the politicians themselves – but warned that it wouldn’t end with them...

“There’s an ill-will in this Bill,” Mr Massawe said, somewhat enigmatically. “Even the few sections in the Bill which seem to be progressive are in fact aimed at sugarcoating the more severe and discriminatory ones!”

Asked what he considers to be progressive proposals in the bill, the LHRC lawyer named the sections as including the ones which call for the disbandment of political party militias, and which seek to ensure transparency and accountability within parties – especially in relation to their expenditure of government grants.