Tanzania: Rebranding of CUF offices begins in Zanzibar as Seif soldiers on

Pemba. Offices of the Civic United Front (CUF) in Pemba are being rebranded as leadership wrangles within the opposition party reach new levels.

Some CUF members were seen removing furniture from the party’s Zanzibar headquarters on Mtendeni Street, although it could not be immediately established where it was being taken to.

The High Court in the Dar es Salaam on Monday, March 18, 2019 officially pronounced Prof Ibrahim Lipumba as the bona fide CUF chairman, noting that the party’s secretary-general, Mr Seif Shariff Hamad, had no authority to challenge the decision of the Registrar of Political Parties to recognise the former’s chairmanship.

Having accepted objections submitted by the Attorney General on behalf of the Registrar of Political Parties, High Court Judge Benhajj Masoud ruled that Prof Lipumba remains the bona fide CUF chairman.

CUF has experienced a leadership crisis since August 2016 when Prof Lipumba announced that he had decided to withdraw his 2015 resignation letter and assume the party’s chairmanship again.

Although Prof Lipumba claimed that he had the right to withdraw his resignation letter, the majority of the party’s leadership, under Hamad, strongly opposed the move.

The group went to court, opposing the legality of Prof Lipumba’s return as the party’s chairmanship.

Last week, Prof Lipumba convened a general meeting which went ahead despite being opposed by the Seif faction.

The meeting re-elected the economics professor as the party’s national chairman.

Prof Lipumba nominated Mr Khalifa Suleiman Khalifa as the party’s new secretary-general in what was seen as a deliberate move to further isolate the powerful Hamad.

Mr Hamad is expected to speak to journalists within the coming few minutes but information from Pemba, which is his home town and CUF’s stronghold, shows that a number of what used to CUF’s offices are already being rebranded.

“We are rebranding the offices as directed by higher authorities,” the CUF secretary for Chakechake District in Pemba, Mr Saleh Nassor Juma, told The Citizen on Monday.

He said Mr Hamad has the people who were ready to work with him in any political party he chooses to go to.

Although Mr Hamad has not yet announced the party he will be shifting to with his followers, it is being speculated that he would be joining Zitto Kabwe’s ACT-Wazalendo and the colours being painted on some of CUF’s offices look similar to those being used by ACT.

The former secretary of CUF’s youth wing, Mr Khalifa Abdallah, said Mr Hamad has the numbers and that his followers will never let him down.

Zitto Kabwe speaks

Mr Zitto Kabwe told The Citizen that he was not aware that some of CUF’s offices in Pemba were being rebranded to look similar to ACT Wazalendo’s colours.

He noted however that he fully supported Mr Hamad’s ‘fight’ for democracy.

“What I know is that the people’s craving for a democratic Tanzania must go on. We support Maalim Seif in any decision that he makes. In case there is anything, Tanzanians will be informed accordingly,” he said.