Jailed CUF members to run for election

Five members of the Zanzibari opposition Civic United Front (CUF) who have been in jail for the past two years on treason charges have declared their intention to stand for parliament in October’s general elections on the island. “It is their right to contest since they have only been in detention and have not been convicted,” Reuters news agency quoted CUF Secretary-General Seif Shariff Hamad as saying. The five, four of them currently members of parliament, are among 18 CUF members charged with plotting to overthrow the government of Zanzibar, it said. Amnesty International has denounced the trial as a travesty of justice. The jailed activists have not yet been brought to trial, but were currently appealing a pre-trial ruling which said that they had a case to answer, Reuters reported. Zanzibar, which joined with Tanganyika in 1964 to form Tanzania, has been in political turmoil since the CUF claimed there was massive rigging of the 1995 elections, narrowly won by the CCM party. Abraham Senguji, a lawyer with the National Electoral Commission (NEC) has confirmed that people accused - but not convicted - of a crime were free to run for office, the Tanzanian ‘Guardian’ newspaper reported. A by-election would be called if an elected member of parliament were subsequently convicted of a criminal offence, it said. The CUF has expressed concern that the government could be tempted to deny the five the right to stand for election by fixing their trials for important electoral dates. There has also been fear that the CUF would boycott the Zanzibar poll in protest at the government’s refusal to implement a British Commonwealth-brokered agreement on the reform of the Zanzibar electoral commission and a review of constitutional and electoral issues, diplomatic sources told IRIN.