Government of National Unity reality check for ACT-Wazalendo today
What you need to know:
It is almost certain that ACT-Wazalendo will accept to join the Government of National Unity (GNU) in Zanzibar to work in President Hussein Mwinyi’s administration as the opposition party charts its own future survival
Dar es Salaam. It is almost certain that ACT-Wazalendo will accept and join the Government of National Unity (GNU) in Zanzibar, The Citizen can report.
The decision to join President Hussein Mwinyi’s administration is likely to be made in Dar es Salaam where the opposition party’s Central Committee (CC) will be meeting today.
Top party officials were non-committal on the expected announcement while telling The Citizen that the final world would be made public after the CC meeting takes a joint decision.
Sources close to the party leader, Mr Zitto Kabwe, confided to The Citizen that it was clear that a decision had been made to assume their place in the GNU which is a constitutional requirement for the Isles since 2010.
Neither Mr Kabwe nor ACT-Wazalendo’s national chairman Seif Sharif Hamad were available yesterday for comment but the secretary general, Mr Ado Shaibu, confirmed one of the agenda for today’s meeting is the decision on the GNU.
“The CC has been vested with powers to discuss and make decisions on various issues including the GNU. Hopefully, the GNU is among the issues to be discussed and resolved tomorrow (today),” he said over the phone.
He said the CC could make recommendations to the party’s National Executive Council on specific areas of the matter should need arise. He declined to say if it was already in the majority that ACT-Wazalendo joins the GNU.
“There are many issues that will be analysed, for instance our participation in this year’s elections that were marred with massive irregularities and measures taken nationally and internationally,” he said.
He said the CC meeting will also deliberate on the position of their representatives, including councillors, members of the House of Representatives. “We will thus give the direction and appropriate channels that the party should follow.
Mr Shaibu said the GNU wasn’t the party’s area of priority immediately after the conclusion of the elections as compared to issues of human rights violations that had to be dealt with.
Late last month, Mr Hamad said the party was collecting views from its members and other players on the way forward. The views were collected during meetings fashioned as visiting victims of police brutality in the elections.
Yesterday, our credible sources said after the exercise had been concluded, word within the party is that ACT-Wazalendo takes party in President Mwinyi’s administration and chat its future from there.
“Despite the election pains and political stalemate in the Isles, the general view is that the people are supportive of the GNU idea because of what they have gained from it. It’s their only hope from persecution and also the survival of the party, at least in the interim,” said one of the sources from Zanzibar.
However, the source pointed out, the approval to join the GNU would depend on the majority position of the CC members from Zanzibar where the GNU is operating. “On the mainland it is of less concern than that of the party’s future survival,” added the source.
The Citizen also understands that pending housekeeping issues by the Registrar of Political Parties could have weighed on the side of those in favour of joining the GNU. According to our sources, the registrar’s political parties’ policing powers over the opposition could jeorpodise the future of the party or plunge it into a crisis reminiscent of that of Civic United Front.
Ironically, ACT-Wazalendo gained prominence from the fallout within CUF when Mr Hamad who was its former long serving secretary general, and five times presidential candidate in Zanzibar, parted ways with its chairman, Prof Ibrahim Lipumba, and joined ACT-Wazalendo to make it the opposition power house in the Isles.
Mr Hamad run for presidency for his sixth shot at the ‘White House’ on ACT-Wazalendo in 2020 but his advanced age means it must chat a future without him at the helm. The top leadership was reportedly facing a difficult and catch 22 situation over the route it should take going forward.
Mr Kabwe and Hamad confirmed before that they were consulting widely on the invitation by President Mwinyi to join his government. Kabwe later in a joint digital interview with Chadema presidential candidate Tundu Lissu said ACT-Wazalendo won’t be the first to be in the GNU or out of it as a party. He pointed out to CUF’s 2010 GNU partnership with CCM and the 2015 experience when it stayed out in protest of the elections outcome.
In forming his cabinet, President Mwinyi reserved the position of the First Vice President and two ministries for ACT-Wazalendo, the constitutional threshold for the votes that the party received in the results announced by the Zanzibar Electoral Commission.
ZEC declared Dr Mwinyi the winner with 76.27 per cent of the votes while Mr Hamad came second with 19.87 percent of the votes cast. The law requires that the second party with at least 10 per cent of the votes join the winner in forming a GNU that was a result of a pact (Mwafaka) reached after over a decade of political animosity.
