Legal Hitch Might Derail New Katiba

By Frank Kimboy The Citizen reporter Dar es Salaam.

An article in the 2010 Zanzibar Constitution which requires any amendment of the Union government Constitution to be done through a referendum, could derail the process to re-write the United Republic of Tanzania new Constitution. 

 The Tanzania Centre for Democracy chairperson, Mr James Mbatia, made the observation in Dar es Salaam yesterday during a two-day symposium on lessons to be learnt from neighbouring countries which have re-written their constitutions, hosted by the Tanzania Centre for Democracy (TCD). 

 He said the existence of the article would complicate matters if the amendments would be needed on the Zanzibar Constitution to be accommodated in the United Republic of Tanzania new Law.

 “We are in a constitutional crisis because we have the United Republic of Tanzania Constitution which states that Tanzania is a sovereign state but we also have the Zanzibar 2010 Constitution which recognizes Zanzibar as a sovereign state…much worse it is very hard to amend the Zanzibar Constitution,” said Mr Mbatia, adding that it was important that the controversies are addressed soon. 

 The participants also called for reform of the National Electoral Commission and its Zanzibar counterpart, if the two organs are to conduct the referendum for the new Constitution.  They argued that the two electoral organs have lost people’s trust basing on experience from the previous elections. 

The Civic United Front (CUF) national chairman Prof Ibrahim Lipumba, said it is important to reform the two electoral organs before the referendum. “We need national consensus as we re-write the new Katiba and for that we need an organ which has public trust to conduct the referendum…under the current situation neither is NEC nor ZEC are independent.