Pessimism as constituent assembly loses direction

This business of collecting people’s views at this stage is wrong and illegal. Perhaps Sitta and his colleagues are simply doing this as a way of deceiving members of the public that the CA is more listening than the CRC and by so doing they want to draw people’s compassion that they are really doing what they were tasked to do.PHOTO|FILE 

By Mwassa Jingi

In Summary

Various groups of people are rushing to Dodoma to have their interests incorporated into the proposed Constitution because they fear that their interests will be ignored by the CA after changing the Union structure proposed by the CRC.

Dar es Salaam. The Constituent Assembly (CA), whose majority are members of the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM), is going on amidst all ill sayings against it and at the same time major opposition parties, forming a coalition of defenders of people’s Constitution (Ukawa), that boycotted it, are still asked to go back and rejoin it. At this stage where the CA has reached, it doesn’t make any sense, while the so-called Ukawa is preferred.

Ironically, what the CA is doing is very upsetting. Apart from their main business of overhauling the second Draft constitution, an exercise which is very confusing, they are also collecting people’s views to be included in the proposed Constitution of their own - a task that had been completed by the Constitutional Review Commission (CRC). CA chairman Samuel Sitta has been defending himself that what the CA is doing is not collecting people’s views, but receiving various groups of people, who are visiting Dodoma for lobbying purposes only.

I think Sitta is not saying the truth. An acceptable kind of lobbying is one, which is done informally using the media or other means, but not going to the CA formally. Lobbying at this stage should not be by Sitta or CA leadership in meeting people or pressure groups that bring new things and want the same to be incorporated into a new Constitution. The right kind of lobbying should be done through meeting probably members of the CA informally during their break time outside the CA premises, but not the way Sitta is doing by organising meetings with groups of people, who want their views included in the proposed Constitution at this stage.

This business of collecting people’s views at this stage is wrong and illegal. Perhaps Sitta and his colleagues are simply doing this as a way of deceiving members of the public that the CA is more listening than the CRC and by so doing they want to draw people’s compassion that they are really doing what they were tasked to do.

Various groups of people are rushing to Dodoma to have their interests incorporated into the proposed Constitution because they fear that their interests will be ignored by the CA after changing the Union structure proposed by the CRC. This doesn’t, however, mean that the CRC left out important views, but those were matters for Tanganyika’s Constitution. Since the CA has decided to CCM’s two–government system, that is why the people are worried that their significant matters they said during the CRC are going to be left out. Nevertheless, those things for Tanganyika are available in various CRC reports and the CA has no justification to entertain new ideas from different groups of people. The problem is that CA members haven’t read the reports or if they have read them they have decided to ignore them.

The CA misdirected itself from the beginning when it decided to change the Union structure from that of a three-government system proposed by the CRC, instead it has opted for the current two-government system. As we all know, the proposed Union structure in the Draft Constitution is the bedrock of the whole document in which disturbing such a structure will make the whole document flawed.

Even CCM themselves confess in their analytical document on the Draft Constitution that the proposed Union structure is the heart of the Draft Constitution. Removing such heart of the Draft Constitution is the same as undoing the Draft Constitution. That is why the CA is now drifting aimlessly, trying to create another Draft Constitution of their own and then make it a kind of the proposed Constitution.

The proposed Union structure in the Draft Constitution is a compass, which would help lead the CA to the right direction during their course of discussions and deliberation on the proposed Constitution. The removal of the proposed three-government system in the Draft Constitution has made the CA lose direction and make wander in the ‘wilderness’ as the Israelites did during their journey from Egypt to Canaan, where they spent 40 years, instead of 11 days eligible for the journey.

Although CA committees are doing their deliberations indoors, the media has been informing us that things are not going on well in certain Chapters and Articles of the Draft Constitution, which directly interweave with the proposed structure of a three-government system. This is a kind of disarray which the CA deliberately wanted. Since a good number of the Draft Constitution’s provisions are interweaved with a three-government system, by removing such a structure, CA members have confused themselves, and won’t reach their goal of having an improved new Constitution with a two-government system, as CCM wants it.

A good example is Chapter Six of the Draft Constitution, which carries the Union structure and its institutions. The CA has spent several days deliberating on this Chapter, trying to fit it in a two-government system without success. While they feel so bad to come out with almost the same structure of the Proposed Constitution, which will be just a reproduction of the current Constitution, they are not in agreement on how they do with the structures of many Union institutions as they appear in the Draft Constitution. The CA is about to disband itself.

For instance, the CA has failed to come out with a proper structure of the Union Parliament. While others want the Union Parliament to remain unicameral, others want it to be bicameral or even three chambers - one being solely dedicated for Tanganyika and for non-Union matters. They have lost direction simply because they refused to follow the principled structure designed by the CRC. The CA members should remember that the CRC members diligently did their work professionally because they had ample time to conduct research in controversial matters and that is why they reached consensus in every aspect.

But CA committees lack many things. First, they don’t have much time to think and deliberate on Union matters and think being the majority they are always right in what they are doing. They are conscious of time and as such they are doing their business in a hurriedly and haphazardly manner. Hence, they are doing things absence minded. Second, they don’t have such expertise in constitutional matters as the CRC had. We should not forget that the CRC had two highly learned lawyers in constitutional matters, including the designing of constitutions.