SANF 05 No 113
“General elections at last” was the headline of one daily newspaper as millions of voters finally went to the polls this week in the delayed presidential and parliamentary elections in the United Republic of Tanzania.
The death of an opposition vice-presidential running mate on 27 October caused the postponement of the Union elections from 30 October to 14 December.
Another daily newspaper, under the banner “Tanzania decides”, urged voters to make their decision wisely when voting for the fourth President of the Republic, “the third since the founder of the nation, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, and a new parliament to carry forward our aspirations and dreams.”
These elections have attracted the largest number of contestants since the advent of a multi-party political system more than a decade ago, including 10 candidates for the Union presidency.
Eighteen political parties fielded 1,225 candidates for the parliamentary elections, although less than 20 percent of these could eventually win constituency seats in parliament.
There were 7,593 potential councillors contesting in 2,552 local council wards countrywide.
Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM), the party in government, was the only one to present a full slate of candidates and has won seven seats unopposed.
Government and opposition parties all predicted they would improve on their showing, but the opposition stopped short of predicting a majority in the Union parliament, the Bunge.
The opposition parties held just 26 of 232 constituency seats in the previous parliament. The Civic United Front (CUF) held 17 seats, the Tanzania Labour Party and the Chama cha Demokrasia na Maendeleo (Chadema) each held four, while the United Democratic Party had one. The majority of the constituency seats were won by CCM.
The new Bunge will have 324 legislators including the 232 constituency winners. An additional 75 special seats will be allocated to women, awarded proportionally based on the number of votes won by parties that have at least five percent of the valid votes.
Ten members will be nominated by the Union president and there will be five from the Zanzibar House of Representatives, plus one seat reserved for the attorney-general and another nominated representative.
The media predicated a close race in 36 seats including five in Dar es Salaam, but mostly in the north of the country.
The total number of eligible voters registered to vote in the Union elections was 15,958,801. There were more than 48,000 polling stations on the mainland and the islands of Zanzibar, expected to process some 450 voters each.
There were a few minor incidents during the campaign when police prevented parties from campaigning too close to one another or at the same venue. Police were strict in not allowing “demonstrations” of one party near the venue of another, and this had the result of preventing inadvertent confrontations during the campaign.
Election day was largely quiet on the mainland, with a few incidents in Zanzibar, notably in Stone Town where some opposition supporters tried to block voters they did not recognise and police had to intervene.
The number of local and foreign observers of the elections grew to more than 300 just before polling day with the addition of observers from the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the East African Community, the Commonwealth and the local office of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Other observers already in place included the SADC Parliamentary Forum, the African Union, and the National Democratic Institute from the United States.
Observers were cautioned by the National Electoral Commission (NEC) and the outgoing Union president to behave in an appropriate manner, observe neutrality, and wait for official results to be announced by the designated authorities.
The NEC chairperson, Judge Lewis Makame, said results would be announced soon after completion of ballot counting at polling stations, and stressed that non-authorised institutions would not be allowed to announce results in any circumstances.
He said that results for local councillors would be officially announced by the election supervisors at ward level, while results for parliamentary seats would be announced by election supervisors at constituency level. The NEC would announce results of the presidential elections, and complete this within five days.
However, the country has seen a communications revolution in the past decade with more than 2.5 million cellphone users, and the improvement in communications should speed the collation of election results.
During the first multi-party election in 1995, it was almost impossible to communicate with upcountry constituencies due to congestion and unreliability of landlines.
The inauguration of the next president is planned for Wednesday, 21 December, when the incumbent will hand over to his successor, who will take the oath of office on that day. The new parliament is expected to be called into session just over a week later, on 30 December.
These are the fifth elections held in the SADC region in 2005, following parliamentary and later senate elections in Zimbabwe, parliamentary elections in Mauritius, and the elections for the Zanzibar president, parliament and local councillors in October.
Zanzibar is part of the United Republic of Tanzania but has a separate electoral commission that conducts elections for its own governance structure in addition to the Union.
