SECRETARY General of the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) Abdulrahaman Kinana yesterday unveiled his plan to quit the party’s top executive job at the general congress to give chance to energetic youth to lead East Africa’s oldest political party.
Speaking here shortly after inspecting
the party’s main conference centre, a place set to accommodate nearly
4,000 party members for the general congress, Mr Kinana said it was the
right time for him to go. “I have served this post for three and half
years.
I was requested by the party elders to
join the top post in the party leadership structure,” Mr Kinana told
reporters. He revealed that he did not like being CCM top administrator
but had conceded to the requests by retired leaders and party officials.
“It is not a position I preferred.
I was summoned by leaders and asked to
lead the party, I agreed because they are people I highly respected,” he
noted. Mr Kinana who has previously served the party in various
position and member for the central committee for the past 25 years,
affirmed that he has learnt a number of challenges some of which quite
disappointing.
According to Mr Kinana, a good
politician is the one who understands the best time to join and/or quit
the part. He said he had agreed with elders to help the outgoing party
Chairman, Mr Jakaya Kikwete, to strengthen the party as well as screen
candidates for the presidential, legislative and councillorship posts.
“The elections are over. I hope I should
now go and rest since I have fulfilled what I was assigned to do,” he
said in Dodoma, noting that he will talk to the incoming party National
Chairman, Mr John Magufuli, regarding the post.
“I have not been asked by Mr Magufuli
whether he wants me to stay, but that will mean the two of us should
discuss as it happened in 2012.” The Secretary General maintains a clear
level of argument “as the party will not tolerate and put a smile onto
treacherous.”
He said the party has been strict
against betrayers from the district, regional to the national level. The
just recent action was in Shinyanga where 123 members were held
accountable.
He pointed out that the party’s
dwindling communication to its members at the grassroots had seriously
damaged the party’s image. “But another challenge was to reinforce unity
and solidarity within the party,” he said, acknowledging in his three
years as the party leader, he witnessed disunity and disputes that
clearly affected the party.
“I worked with other leaders and we
managed to return discipline, unity and solidarity within the party,” he
said. Mr Kinana visited all districts, provinces and
regions--travelling over 192,000km and holding 3,700 political meetings
across the country.
He said there areas in which he argued
with his leaders and government officials that “They were too dangerous
for me to go ... but I said I have and I must get there.” The secretary
said he had to risk his life, ferrying in dilapidated fishing boats just
to reach at areas that the top government and party leaders had never
reached.
“I remember the former president, Mr
Kikwete and Kyela district commissioner also warned me against the use
of fish-boats,” he recalled.
Delay by the government to pay farmers,
land conflicts, lack of agro inputs and delays to disburse development
funds in district councils from the central bank were among the issues
he encountered in his nearly four-year tenure.
