Is our parliament really fit for purpose?

Article 84-(1) of the Tanzanian Constitution states “There shall be a Speaker of the National Assembly who shall be elected by the MPs from amongst members who are MPs or who are qualified to be MPs.”

The latter here means individuals who are not necessarily sitting lawmakers but have the qualifications to be an MP. On those requisite qualifications, they are just to be able to read and write in either Kiswahili or English. Really in this day and age?

Oh yes indeed! And this at a time President Samia speaks about the 4IR. How is it surely possible to progress then when the legislature is stuck in a time warp? We are essentially talking of a parliament from the 1960s when education levels in the main were most basic. If Tanzania had a serious commitment in the education field, it would begin with a focused conversation on the actual qualities of leaders in need. As we are told, everything rises and falls on leadership. Permitting a situation where anything goes is courting big trouble.

Moving now to the provision for the speaker to be elected from non-MPs. This is something that to my mind is rather odd. As a caveat it does not entail independent aspirants but rather that the candidate be a member of a political party.

I ask myself was the intention here to get some kind of a neutral arbiter to run the House? Will that person ordinarily be able to command respect when they are not from within? How when we are talking of the most political of institutions? I’m hard pressed to hear of its application anywhere else in the world. I find this to be a constitutional anomaly that better be done away the sooner the better.

As things were anyway, most of the candidates in the race to inherit Job Ndugai’s seat came from outside the National Assembly.

We saw an incredulous 70-odd number of people running for prestige. At this juncture, I feel the need to condemn in the strongest terms the political frivolity that has now become a phenomenon in the ruling CCM. How surely does a party descend to that level of such a high number of aspirants that cannot even feature on one page of a newspaper? In the name of democracy?

It was Mwalimu Nyerere incidentally who in 1992 cited the then-Zaire as having innumerable political parties but that it didn’t signify democracy. What public scrutiny can honestly happen in such circumstances? The majority of those who stood were never known to the public, let alone CCM lawmakers. The big story over time would become that of how the party was raking in millions of shillings.

In a way though this goes back to my first point on the scandalous qualifications in order to become an MP. We are reaping what we have sowed in other words.

In spite of all the mad rush, CCM after many twists and turns shrouded in mystery, eventually settled on a candidate in the name of Tulia Ackson Mwansasu, a “headmistress-like” young lady who was previously deputizing Ndugai. A few attempts by parts of the media to try and gauge who the front-runner was ended up as an exercise in futility.

And when the business end of parliament did arrive early last week, what played out was a most humorous but painfully depressing sight. Indeed close parliamentary watchers over the years will not have failed to notice just how each cycle of elections of our representatives to various regional organs such as EALA or the African Parliament has degenerated virtually into a race-to-the-bottom contest.

You find most of those doing the questioning are not any better than the candidates presenting themselves. And when in English it becomes another story altogether.

The depressing sight continued just after Madam Tulia had made her pitch. Some singing broke out but was nipped in the bud for obviously embarrassing reasons. Moments before a candidate was showered with money for his presentation. All beneath the dignity of the hallowed chamber.

To cap of the day’s events, even a member of the so-called women MPs from Chadema had the temerity to ask an opposition candidate a question. I can only imagine how aghast ex-speaker, Mzee Pius Msekwa, was at the sight of the MP on her feet. Msekwa has gone to considerable lengths to make the point that they are all an illegitimate bunch. In turn he revealed how “some arrogant people told him to shut up and mind his own business.” Pole sana Mzee!

And when it did come down to the declaration of the victor, the CCM candidate won every vote, including from whatever minuscule opposition there is in the House! Not even a protest vote!

That is our 21st century Bunge.

On a closing note, only early last month did I learn about a planned prayer breakfast for the end of January that was initiated by Ndugai. The idea was borrowed from the Kenyan National Assembly which in turn adopted it from the US Congress. Regardless of Ndugai’s ways that were so inimical to democracy, genuine prayer for wisdom can only be welcomed with open arms. I sincerely hope the plan won’t have died a natural death with the exit of Ndugai as happens all too often on our continent when a new boss is in town