Tanzania’s ruling party, Chama Cha Mapinduzi’s Congress will on Sunday vote to pick its Presidential candidate for the October elections.
The Congress comprises some 2,100 members. On Saturday, the party narrowed its choice of presidential nominee for the upcoming elections down to five including two women.
The justice minister and former UN deputy secretary general Asha-Rose Migiro and African Union ambassador to the US Amina Salum Ali made history, becoming the first women to make it this far in to the nomination contest.
Other candidates include the current foreign minister Bernard Membe and his colleague in the cabinet, minister for works, John Magufuli.
January Makamba, 41, could become the youngest nominee since the country’s founding leader Julius Nyerere became president in 1962.
On Saturday, the party will cut down the list further to a short-list of three candidates. With the opposition not as strong as they were in 2010, it is widely expected that whoever emerges as CCM’s standard bearer stands a good chance of being elected president come October.
