SANF 05 No 118
A short announcement by the chairperson of the National Electoral Commission confirmed that the next president of the United Republic of Tanzania will be Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete.
Retired Judge Lewis Makame, the NEC chairperson, said simply, “I declare that Jakaya Kikwete has won this election and Ali Muhammed Shein is the elected vice president.” Makame was flanked at the ceremony by the outgoing president, Benjamin Mkapa.
The final results of the presidential election on 14 December showed that Kikwete, 55, the candidate of Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM), received 9,102,951 votes. That is an overwhelming 80.2 percent of the popular vote.
The NEC announcement declaring final results of the election time-barred a court challenge mounted by one of the opposition candidates, Augustine Mrema of the Tanzania Labour Party (TLP), who got less than one percent of the total 11,346,189 votes cast.
Mrema sued to stop the commission from declaring final results based on his claim that he had evidence of vote-rigging. However, the elections were fully endorsed as “free and fair and credible” by local and foreign observers, including the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the African Union, and the Commonwealth.
Kikwete’s victory surpasses that of his CCM predecessor, who was elected president in 1995 with 62 percent of the vote and increased this to almost 72 percent the second time he faced the electorate in 2000, showing the positive response to his focus on improving the economy and the economic conditions of Tanzanians.
Mkapa was determined that his successor’s mandate would be even more decisive, and he campaigned hard to achieve that.
The winning candidate campaigned throughout the vast country by road, meeting people and addressing rallies, conveying the CCM plans for development. This message had credibility with the voters due to the policies of the Mkapa administration, which has seen the results of an economic turnaround with increased growth and low inflation.
Both Mkapa and Kikwete have credited the founding president, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, with establishing the national ethic, the common vision and values which form the bedrock of Tanzanian society.
Based on this record and Mwalimu’s legacy, CCM won easily from a field of 10 candidates.
A distant second was Professor Ibrahim Lipumba, the presidential candidate of the Civic United Front (CUF), who won 1,317,220 votes, just 11.6 percent of the total valid votes cast in the election for president of the Union, comprising the mainland of former Tanganyika and the islands of Zanzibar.
Lipumba was followed by Freeman Mbowe of Chama cha Demokrasia na Maendeleo (Chadema) with 617,780 votes and Mrema of the TLP with 84,131 votes. Mrema and the other candidates each got less than one percent of the vote.
Both Mbowe and Mrema are former members of parliament in the Arusha/Kilimanjaro area, whose home constituencies were lost to the CCM in this election.
The turnout of voters at the polls was high, some 70 percent of those registered to vote, causing the leader of the African Union observer delegation to express surprise at the large numbers of people who waited patiently to cast their ballot.
Under its Constitution, the United Republic of Tanzania is an independent, unitary, sovereign and democratic state committed to the rule of law. It was forged by two independent states – Tanganyika (independence 9 December 1961) and Zanzibar (independence 10 December 1963).
The Union was formalised on 26 April 1964. Its objective is to build a unified society based on freedom, human rights and peaceful existence.
Zanzibar is a semi-autonomous region of the Union that also elects a local president and parliament. The Zanzibari president has no jurisdiction over the mainland. Legislative functions are vested in the House of Representatives which enacts laws except on constitutionally decreed Union matters, such as foreign affairs, home affairs and defence.
Amani Abeid Karume, the CCM candidate, won re-election on 30 October for a second five-year term by 53.2 percent of the vote. Seif Shariff Hamad of CUF, his closest challenger, got 46.1 percent of the total valid votes cast.
CUF has refused to accept the election results in Zanzibar, despite the approval of local, regional and international election observers, including SADC, the African Union and the Commonwealth.
The challenge for the next president of the United Republic of Tanzania is to maintain the peace and stability prevailing in the country, while sustaining the momentum of economic growth that has been realised under President Mkapa’s leadership.
