The public has gone pessimistic over what the new parliament would offer, given the traditional monopoly of seats by the ruling party Chama Cha Mapinduzi, with only a week left to the first session in the fifth-phase government, scheduled for November 17.
They believe that like in the past, the house will be controlled by the ruling party, having no one to debate the apparently bias bills.
The Civic United Front (CUF) contender who lost the Segerea Constituency in the just concluded polls Julius Mtatiro told The Guardian on Sunday that CCM would take advantage of their superior number to pass the otherwise useless resolutions.
Mtatiro, however, advised opposition MPs not to give up the fight for a layman who had been trying hard to bring changes in October 25 elections, but in vain.
He nevertheless expressed hope that the new parliament will be more challenging than the previous one owing to dominance of the energetic young lawmakers.
Legal and Human Right Centre (LHRC) Executive Director Dr Helen Kijo Bisimba was also on the view that little should be expected of the parliament dominated by the old ruling party.
“The opposition ought to apply a lot of pressure to sale their ideas for any change to take place,” she said.
Eliud Kimario, a resident of Kimara in Dar es Salaam was also not expecting anything new from the next parliament because he does not see significant appearance of new faces in the law making body.
Rose Rutahiwa, a resident of Dar es Salaam echoed Kimario’s assertion, saying she did not expect any new ideas to come out of the ruling party’s MPs as they would read from the same hymn sheet of the old party’s policies.
However, suggesting the way out of the anticipated law making inertia, she said it was high time for MPs to put aside their fanatic stances to party affiliation when it comes to discussing issues of the national interest.
SOURCE: GUARDIAN ON SUNDAY
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