Africa-Press – Tanzania. THE National Executive Committee (NEC) of the ruling CCM is sitting today in Dodoma to endorse the name of the party’s sixth national chairperson.
Upon nomination, the new chairperson’s name will be forwarded to the national congress that will convene tomorrow for approval to fill the vacuum left behind by the late Dr John Magufuli.
Yesterday, the party’s Central Committee (CC) met in preparations for the big meetings scheduled for today and tomorrow at the Dodoma’s Jakaya Kikwete Convention Centre.
This becomes the continuation of a series of smooth transitions of party’s chairmanship that CCM has been observing over the past two decades.
This year’s transition is held following the death of former party Chairman and President the late Dr Magufuli.
However, the presidential seat has already been covered by Mama Samia Suluhu Hassan according to the country’s Constitution.
Traditionally, CCM has been endorsing a sitting president to a party’s national chairmanship. All former presidents had also served at the party’s top position.
On Monday CCM’s Secretary for Publicity and Ideology Humphrey Polepole (pictured) was quoted by media as saying that all the arrangements for the meetings, where members of the party’s national congress are expected to endorse the leadership change in a “Yes and No” vote are complete.
list of CCM former chairpersons include the late Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, Ali Hassan Mwinyi, the late Benjamin Mkapa, Jakaya Kikwete and the late Dr John Magufuli.
Under the chairmanship of the late Dr Magufuli, CCM made constitutional reforms that among other things saw a cut down in the number of members of its organs.
The reforms saw a prune in the number of members of the CC from 34 to 24. Also, the membership of the NEC had been downsized to 163 from an earlier 378, a decrease by 225 spaces.
In the same vein, the national congress came down from the size of 2,380 to 1,706.
The Friday meeting is also likely to come up with the name of the CCM’s new Secretary General to take over from Dr Bashiru Ally, who created a vacuum after ascending to be appointed as the Chief Secretary by the late President Magufuli, before his latest appointment by President Samia as a Member of Parliament.
