New Constitution, cry of a Nation
By Editor
12th December 2010
Just after the General Elections many voices of prominent people as well as ordinary Tanzanians have been raised against the current Constitution, calling it a time barred document that serves the interests of the ruling party at the expense of 43 million plus citizens of this country.
These voices demand an overhaul of the current Constitution, by drafting a new one, others seeking a re-write, while still a few, mostly on the Government side, are comfortable with allowing patches where amendments, in what they claim to match with time, can safely do and carry the nation going, and smoothly.
The 1977 Constitution has been amended severally, actually 14 times to be exact while the 15th amendment is in the offing, an indication that all is not too well. It is undeniably a product of colonial inheritance, that by itself is enough to set the stage for a new draft, albeit five decades after independence although it could not mean detaching from colonialism.
As the basic or fundamental Law of the Land, the Mother of all Laws, our Constitution is outdated, not comfortably matching the current political environment.
Already people are not too happy with the nomination of Cabinet Ministers from elected Members of Parliament, there are opinions that Regional Commissioners should directly be voted in by the electorate in the respective regions and the loud cry from various sections of the country and community wanting Independent or Private Candidates.
It has been clearly in the open that people want the powers of the President to be reduced, as well as petitioning in a Court of law the Presidential Election results. There are still opinions widely ranging from having an independent Electoral Commission whose head should not be appointed by the President, every region to have its own Attorney-General while the post of District Commissioners be abolished constitutionally and development directors work responsibly in their place.
The list of changes in the Constitution is endless and there is great public demand on this. For is it news anymore that opposing opinion on the size of the Ministries has been heard? That the Constitution goes open on that the size of ministries, and subsequently that of Cabinet Ministers?
Not only that. Why is the Constitution silent on the number of Regions, Districts or Constituencies? Or the President should not have the mandate to increase or decrease the size of the Cabinet?
The list of what should be in the Constitution becomes all the more endless. There are those who believe that Members of Parliament should not be permitted by the Constitution to make personal gains such as arranging their emoluments; that all politicians should pay income taxes as the case is to all other ordinary citizens.
The Elections Act, for example, is allowed silently by the Constitution about announcing results not officially at the voting stations but by the Commission itself, which allows room for doctoring results, and so more and more. There are also opinions that a president should garner more than 50 percent of the votes cast to be legitimate.
We at The Guardian on Sunday strongly believe that it was high time the government responded to these voices by initiating a thorough process to re-write a new Constitution that will serves all Tanzanians.
We can't continue to have a flawed and time barred constitution that doesn't accommodate the major economic, social and political changes this country has gone through during the past 49 years.
GUARDIAN ON SUNDAY