Mrema, Hamad share experiences over CUF latest developments

Dar es Salaam. Veteran politicians Augustine Mrema and Hamad Rashid Mohamed have said the dispute that engulfed opposition party Civic United Front (CUF) resulted from failure to use internal mechanisms to timely end disagreements.

Mr Mrema, who once shook ruling CCM after the introduction of multiparty politics, and who doubles as the sitting chairman of Tanzania Labour Party (TLP), said the current state affairs of CUF was self-inflicted.

“CUF took the very route that I took. When I was in NCCR-Mageuzi, I had my named dragged into the mud with some branding me as a puppet of CCM, this resulted in loss of trust among ourselves. In the end, I decided to call it quits with the party,” he said.

“Even Maalim Seif shouldn’t deceive himself that he has found a solution. Joining ACT is not a solution to the political challenges facing our parties. We must learn how to sort out our internal differences on our own,” he elaborated.

Analysing the situation in the current CUF, Mr Mrema, who once was the lawmaker for Vunjo and Temeke constituencies at different times in Kilimanjaro Region and Dar es Salaam respectively, the party should expect to see itself losing its previous vigour following the split.

For his part, Hamad Rashid Mohammed, who was once a senior CUF cadre before his membership was revoked, criticized the decision by Mr Seif Sharifa Hamad to join with a party that holds an ideology he does not subscribe to.

“The philosopy of CUF is to liberate Zanzibaris, I don’t think whether that is the case in the new party to which he has joined,” he wondered.

“I think it is a step backwards from a leader who scooped 48 per cent of the votes in the General Election and back to square one,” he argued.

“What will he tell Zanzibar is who trusted him and gave him their votes when he vied for office via CUF; while still in CUF he had the entitled to lamenting over those votes, but now he has lost that right,” he opined.

Mr Hamad said that CUF had reached the state it had because of allowing internal affairs to be decided in court, something he said he once was against.

“I once advised CUF, during the days I was still their member, that political matters should not be taken to court, doing so only amounted to splitting the party further,” he said.

How Mrema fall off from NCCR-Mageuzi

Mr Mrema, who was the chairman of NCCR-Mageuzi, was forced to call it quits from the party in 1999 after he was embroiled in a leadership dispute with the party’s executive committee that sided with then secretary general MabereMarando.

Mrema, who was supported by most members of the central committee, convened a meeting and announced sacking Marando and other members of the executive committee.

Apart from expelling Marando and co, the latter decided to go to court where they won the case and were reinstated as party leaders. During a meeting held at Bwawani Hotel in Zanzibar, MrMrema and his supporters decided to skip the meeting during lunch time.

However, after the Zanzibar incident, Mrema decided to join Tanzania Labour Party (TLP), where Leo Lwekamwa welcomed him to become party chairman.

Mrema called out to all his supporters who were still in NCCR-Mageuzi to join TLP and that all NCCR-Mageuzi offices should be turned into TLP offices. Moreover, Mrema and his supporters defected with the titles they held in their former party.

Hamad Rashid takes CUF to court

In 2012,Hamad Rashid Mohamed, who was the then Wawi Member of Parliament on the ticket of CUF, and 10 others filed a case at the High Court ordering the Board of Trustees of the party to explain themselves why they should not be taken to task for disobeying the court order.

Also, Hamad and supporters asked the Court to order all members of the party’s Leadership Council, including First Vice President of the Government of National Unity of Zanzibar, Seif Sharif Hamad, to explain themselves why measures should not be taken against them for disobeying the court order.

They also prayed to the court to annul the decision by the party Leadership Council to expel them on January 4, 2012, on grounds that the move had violated the CUF constitution.

Before the decision of expelling them, on January 3, 2012, Hamad Rash and his colleagues filed an application before the High Court in Dar es Salaam under the certificate of urgency praying the that meeting of the central committee which was expected to be held in Zanzibar be barred from discussing them.

Through their advocates from the GF Law Chambers, they argued that the Council was conspiring to expel them from the party and that such a move would have infringed their constitutional right.

They continued to argue that there was the principal case in court, Case No. 1 of 2012 that they had filed at the court questioning the structure of the Disciplinary and Ethics Committee of the party and the appointment of the members to the committee.

In his decision on January 4, 2012, Judge Augustine Shangwa ordered CUF to undo its decision of suspending them of expelling the complainants from the party.