TLP member announces interest to vie for Presidency

As several members of the ruling party CCM have shown personal interest with some already announced their intentions to vie for the presidency post in the coming general election, an ordinary member of Tanzania Labour Party (TLP) has also joined the race with much vigor to enter the State House. Macmillan Lyimo, (aged 52) officially announced his intention yesterday at a press conference which he had convened in Dar es Salaam and outlined four major reasons which have made him to arrive at such a decision to acquire such a top most position in the country. Lyimo becomes the first member from the opposition camp in the country to publicly announce his intention and interest to vie for the top most position in the country. He noted that, he has seen the need to safeguard the national peace and unity which he says has started to deteriorate, to foresee the future of the new generation in the country, to protect the rights of the poor people in the country and to protect the country’s natural resources from being depleted Lyimo who holds a Masters Degree of Business Administration from the Open University of Tanzania confidently told journalists that, his decision is to support the political efforts which have so far been contributed by the incumbent party’s chairman who is also a Member of Parliament of Vunjo constituency Augustine Mrema. He noted that, Mrema’s ambitions whose inspirations of the multi-partism democracy started in 1995 when the first multiparty democratic election was held, he contested for the presidency position when he was a Chairman of the NCCR-Mageuzi party. However, he said that Mrema’s inspirations ought to be emulated as a strong leader with political tolerance and who has ever held bigger political positions in the government including the Minister for Home Affairs and Deputy Prime Minister before he defected from the ruling party in 1992. 

Macmillan Lyimo in his private office.

About the political situation in the country, he noted that is not stable, he attributed those who have predicted ahead and concluded that, if the situation persists, the future of Tanzanians will be at a risk point. “A nation is strongly built by enthusiastic citizens and could be destroyed by greedy politicians from the ruling party”, he said adding that three major things needs to be rectified and taken care of in order to save Tanzanians from entering into endless political chaos. He mentioned them as the issue of the new constitution and the referendum polls slated for end of April this year, that enough preparations should be made to allow smooth participation by citizens. Others he said are a tag of war on religious confliction and elaborated that if this is not controlled, the country would soon turn a war torn zone just like what is happening in other countries such as Somalia, DRC and many others in the world whereby there are endless civil wars. He noted that, there have been abusive words which have created a great enmity between Christianity and Muslims which of recent the public has also noticed in addition to that, the burning of churches, pouring of acid chemicals to some religious leaders and many other related offensive issues as related to religious beliefs. Another thing he noted is associated with the general election which he said should be closely monitored to create a wave of trust among voters and their political parties.