Mangula: Why this year’s CCM meeting is different

Dodoma. As the ruling party, Chama Cha Mapinduzi, (CCM), begins its special meeting tomorrow, party’s vice chairman Philip Mangula said this year’s conference will be different from the previous gatherings that nominated presidential candidates.

The conference, which will be held at the Jakaya Kikwete Hall, will also be responsible for approving CCM policies and the election manifesto.

The meeting will approve presidential candidates for both union and the isles.

President John Magufuli is the sole aspirant for the union president while 32 cadres picked up nomination forms eyeing the top Zanzibar seat, but only five have sailed through.

Mr Mangula hinted that the general assembly starting tomorrow will be different from the previous meetings. It is the first meeting since CCM amended its constitution in 2017.

He also said the meeting will have fewer members while all precautionary measures will be considered to avoid the Covid-19 spread.

The amendment reduced the number of the general assembly members from 2,422 to 1,706 while those of the Central Committee were reduced from 34 to 24 and the National Executive Committee (NEC) from 388 to 162.

Mr Mangula said the conference would not have as many guests invited as usual and that the number of invitees would be small to observe health guidelines related to Covid-19 control.

“The General Assembly will pass the CCM manifesto after being reviewed and amended by the central committee. And after that the presidential candidate will be announced to go public for the general election campaign,” he said.

“The parliamentary and councillorship candidates will also be responsible to sell the manifesto during the campaigns,” he added.

Mr Mangula also said the general meeting would receive the government’s report on the implementation of the current election manifesto.

“It is generally the first meeting of its kind as the number of delegates will be reduced for the first time. It would actually give more members a chance to speak,” he said.

“Many members in the meeting does not mean more democracy…fewer people means there is now an opportunity for them to make contributions more than before, ”he said.

He said the majority of the delegates in the previous meetings were not contributing because most of them did not get that chance. However, now at least it will help provide a chance for members to speak besides cost reduction.

Mr Mangula said the interesting thing that will emerge at the summit is that delegates will have an opportunity to celebrate the government’s success over the past five years, especially entering the middle economy rank. “I believe this meeting will appreciate the government’s efforts in implementing the CCM manifesto,” he said.