Zitto cautions over new Political Parties Act

Dar es Salaam. The ACT Wazalendo party leader Zitto Kabwe has warned that efforts to write a Political Parties Act could undermine progress made in building multiparty democracy in the country.

In a statement he sent to the media today, August 31, Mr Kabwe said the experience of passing the Media Services Bill 2016 shows that the government could use the opportunity of passing the new political parties law to undermine political rights in the country.

Besides, he noted, some of the change for the new law fronted by the government do not require total overhaul of the law, while others could have very well been taken care off by the respective parties’ constitutions.

 “It is proposed that the new law should put term limits for party leaders in internal party positions; that the police should be given powers to deny parties the permits to hold rallies; that the Registrar should have the right to access any information that he/she seeks from political parties and that the Registrar should be given powers to deregister a political party in the election year. While some of these proposals could have been taken care off by the constitutions of individual political parties, others are unacceptable,” he said.

He said an emergence meeting of the Council on Political Parties should be convened to discuss the proposed changes to the law.