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Tanzania: A Law On Election Financing Needed
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The Citizen (Dar es Salaam)
EDITORIAL
14 May 2008
Posted to the web 14 May 2008
Two issues have returned to haunt President Jakaya Kikwete midway through his first five-year tenure. Both are grounded in his emphatically impressive inaugural speech to Parliament in December 2005, a few days after being elected the fourth President of the United Republic of Tanzania.
One is the promise to tackle the ever-widening political rift in Zanzibar and the second was the need for a mechanism to trace the source of, and audit the money used to finance elections.
And he was quite right on the need to know who is funding which party in elections and for what reasons or the interests that may be motivating the benefactors. In the words and tone of the presidential address, we saw commitment to free our nation from the grip of evil interests. And many will today still laud President Kikwete for those inspiring thoughts.
However, there is consternation on the political front today over the failure to solve the political impasse in Zanzibar despite 14 full months of the Mwafaka talks between CCM and CUF. With the political tension in the Isles rising, following the apparent collapse of the Mwafaka, President Kikwete's words of wisdom ring louder than ever. There is understandable anxiety that the political rift could widen beyond repair.
On the second Kikwete pledge, we are not seeing much of an effort to come up with legislation to monitor the funding of our political parties.
The ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi, which receives more than Sh2 billion every month from taxpayers' money in a government subsidy, is in competition with opposition counterparts, whose share is negligible, thanks to their minimal or lack of representation in Parliament. However, their real source of funding is not known.
Also, the ruling party, by virtue of controlling the State machinery, has been accused by its rivals of using public funds to finance its election campaigns. But the opposition parties have also been accused of failing to disclose their external funding for elections and other donations.
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We deserve to know where the parties get their money from besides membership fees, and this is not rocket science. Kenyans, thanks to the efforts of a non-governmental organisation, know what the political parties spent in the last elections.
We will have moved a step ahead of them if a law is enacted to ensure transparency and accountability in election funding.
We are still waiting, Mr President.
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