 |
|
Public transport in Arusha 'City' was
brought to a standstill last Sunday when the presidential candidate for
the Ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) party, Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete moved
into town for the Arusha leg of his countrywide political campaigns. |
 |
|
Part of the crowd that welcomed CCM
Presidential candidate, Jakaya Kikwete to Arusha last Sunday. |
Standstill as Kikwete campaign trail hits town
By Arusha Times Reporter
Public transport in Arusha 'City' was brought to a standstill last Sunday when
the presidential candidate for the Ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) party,
Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete moved into town for the Arusha leg of his countrywide
political campaigns.
Kikwete's entourage had reportedly mobilised most of the town commuter vans,
saloon cars and taxi-cabs to assist in ferrying thousands of the party
activists, fans and other supporters. These vehicles formed large and long
convoys marked with green flags. Green and Yellow are the official CCM colors.
The town transport system was thus paralyzed since most commuter vans and cabs
were taken off their usual routes. This paper witnessed hundreds of people being
stranded at various pick up points waiting for their buses that in most cases
never came along. The most affected routes were the Sakina-Ngaramtoni and
Tengeru-Usa River ones, which due to their usual Sunday held market auctions of
Ngaramtoni and Usa River, normally have the most number of passengers on
Sundays.
In Arusha town, Mr. Kikwete conducted his rally at the Sheikh Amri Abeid
stadium, which attracted thousands of people prompting the Col. Middleton road
which passes adjacent to the venue, to be closed down by traffic police in order
to avert possible road accidents. This further served to create even more
transport blues.
The candidate entered Arusha from Kilimanjaro region at about 10.00a.m on
Sunday. Before that he graced a campaign rally at the Leganga grounds in Usa-River,
before taking off and heading to Ngamtoni for yet another rally, then back to
the stadium for the major encore campaign. En-route to either venues, the
charismatic foreign Minister was being escorted by over 50 motorcycles and a
convoy of not less than 30 vehicles.
Other vehicles meanwhile, were busy doing round trips in town for mobilization
of people. The end result of the efforts was a fully packed stadium. The CCM
propagating machine, the Tanzania One Theater (TOT) music band lead by Captain
John Komba proved to be the major source of attraction.
The campaign entourage which later moved to Karatu on Monday, Monduli on Tuesday
and Mirerani on Wednesday, before proceeding to Manyara, also consisted of teen
pop swingers such as Vicky Kamata of Mwanza and Ruta Bushoke from Dar-es-salaam.
In his campaign speech Kikwete promised Arusha residents that once he becomes
president he will establish a friendly credit scheme, guaranteed to issue loans
even to the poorest and marginalized people. "The only current sources of loans
are commercial banks which unfortunately are the enemies of poor people," he
said amid applause.
"For instance if a person like (Meleu) Mrema of Impala Hotel goes to a bank and
ask for a Tsh.300 million loan, he is guaranteed to have it within an hour, but
for an ordinary peasant, a loan of Tsh.20,000 only could take seven years.!
The Candidate was flanked by the Monduli MP candidate, Edward Lowassa, the
Arusha Regional Commissioner Mohammed Babu, the Mwanza regional Commissioner
Daniel Ole Njoolay, the speaker for the National Assembly Abdulrahman Kinana and
the Arusha CCM parliamentary candidate Felix Mrema.
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
