CCM aspirants to wait with bated breath as vetting kicks off
Fred Lowassa son of former Prime Minister Edward Lowassa was among the aspirants who collected nomination forms in Monduli last week.
What you need to know:
The officially known countrywide number of seekers was first revealed by President John Magufuli at a public event that 8,205 party cadres had picked up nomination forms across the country and that were 6,533 seeking endorsement for constituency seats, 1,539 for Special Seats and 133 seeking the Zanzibar House of Representatives seats.
Dar es Salaam. Thousands of CCM members turned up to collect forms to seek the party’s approval to vie for parliamentary seats and councillorship posts across the country. Now, the most daunting and critical task awaits the party machinery that will vet and select its would-be flag bearers.
The process kicks off tomorrow. All the aspirants will now have to undergo a series of screening to finally be selected to contest in the October General Election.
The officially known countrywide number of seekers was first revealed by President John Magufuli at a public event that 8,205 party cadres had picked up nomination forms across the country and that were 6,533 seeking endorsement for constituency seats, 1,539 for Special Seats and 133 seeking the Zanzibar House of Representatives seats.
The figures showed that Dar es Salaam had 829 MP aspirants, Kagera (328), Arusha (320), Kili- manjaro (82) and Unguja South (53).
Yesterday, The Citizen established that by 4pm of Friday, July 17, 2020, the number may have exceeded 10,000 after CCM offices received nomination forms for two days more. Statistics collected by this paper shows that at least 543 cadres returned nomination forms for constituencies in Mwanza Region while 486 others did so in Kilimanjaro.
Other regions and the number of party cadres who returned nomination forms in brackets are Kagera and Mara (460) each, Arusha (432), Tanga (346), Dodoma (325), Kigoma (253), Manyara (245) and Lindi (144).
However, reports from the regions show that about 65 other members who collected nomination forms didn’t return the documents. This means the screening process commencing tomorrow would be tough for the ruling party to come up with appropriate candidates who would fly its flag during this year’s elections.
But, the CCM secretary for Organization, Mr Pereira Ame Silima, told The Citizen yesterday that the screening process commencing on Monday July 20 was a party’s calendar event.
“It is the process that will begin at the district and regional levels under the district secretaries for the Mainland and Constituency secretaries for Zanzibar,” he said. He added, “The primaries will be followed by meetings of political committees in the constituencies, districts and regions.”
Mr Silima said recommendations of the regional committees for candidates of the parliamentary and House of Representative seats would be submitted before NEC’s special committee, the secretariat, the Central Committee (CC) and later NEC for endorsement.
According to him, recommendations of the regional committees for candidates aspiring Parliamentary seats for the Mainland will be tabled before the secretariat, the Central Committee (CC) and later NEC for endorsement.
“Candidates should avoid using bribery, mud sliding other candidates and circulating flyers. These are among issues that will lead to disqualification.
Also, leaders entrusted to oversee the process should ensure justice takes its course,” he said. Last month, the CCM secretary of Ideology and Publicity, Mr Humphrey Polepole released the party’s election process schedule saying the primaries were slated for July 20 and July 21 respectively for candidates vying for Parliamentary and House of Representative seats.
