Shivji: Three governments will kill this nation

BY AISIA RWEYEMAMU

22nd June 2013

Chairman of the Mwalimu Nyerere Professorial Chair, Prof. Issa Shivi

The Chairman of the Mwalimu Nyerere Professorial Chair, Prof. Issa Shivi yesterday spoke against the proposed three-tier government earlier recommended in the newly launched draft constitution, arguing that the set-up would never resolve the existing union concerns.
Speaking at his last professorial chair debate titled, “the Silent Points in the New Constitutional Draft,” Prof. Shivji argued that recommendations on the three-tier government were purely political in nature and that it would lead to economic inequality.
Prof. Shivi commended that most terms in the draft constitution were a result of compromise rather than  consensus, saying that formation of three governments would create more conflict in the two countries, leading to the break-up of the current union. He argued that union concerns could not be resolved by the number of governments but by democracy.
Prof. Shivji added that nobody would benefit, but all would suffer, from the break-up of the union -- citing the example of Sudan where conflict followed immediately after the country split into two countries.
He noted that the people in Zanzibar had raised many complaints over the union, and that they had called for democratic ways of deciding their own affairs -- not just the need for three government – hence the democratic factor in the current debate and not just the number of government which could ‘kill’ the union.
Instead of three governments now on the cards, Professor Shivji has proposed an alternative structure that could sustain the union – and proposes the formation of people’s as well national councils.
He noted that having three government would also mean having three presidents, and cautioned that trouble would begin if those three presidents come from different political parties.

He argued that in the process of forming three governments the mainland president would have a stronger voice because he would be ruling the bigger portion of the union.

Professor Shivji also wondered aloud why the police had been completely left out in all the seven issues of union – as is the case in the existing constitution.

On human rights, Prof. Shivji said the draft constitution had left out important issues such as the right to conduct demonstrations to demand their constitutional rights and justice at work.

The draft constitution which was unveiled this year by the Constitutional Review Commission (CRC) proposes, among many things, formation of three governments. 

SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN