by David Martin in Dar es Salaam
This is the last in a four-part series on the presidential and parliamentary elections Tanzania.
With over two-thirds of the votes counted in Tanzania’s presidential election. Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) candidate, Benjamin William Mkapa, is assured of a decisive first-round victory.
Results from 20 of the 25 regions show that Mkapa has won in 17 of them, polling a shade under 61 percent of the 2 927 020 votes recorded.
He has another 560 575 votes in the four incomplete constituencies — Dodoma, Mwanza, Coast and Tabora — where only nine more results are awaited. This means Mkapa has a total of 3 487 595 of the popular vote assuring him of a first ballot victory in an election which has seen a turnout of 70 per cent of the registered voters.
Mkapa has so far obtained a majority of over 50 percent in every mainland region except Kilimanjaro, where he won just over 20 percent of the vote against the opposition’s 76.44 percent with only two results outstanding.
Tanzania’s first multi-party elections were clouded by chaotic organization in some areas, particularly in urban centres. Tanzania’s High Court rejected a demand by opposition parties to bar the National Electoral
Commission from announcing further results, and sharp criticism of the process from international and local elections observers stopped short of declaring the elections null and void.
Voting in both presidential and parliamentary elections has been rescheduled, however, in Dar es Salaam, where the organizational chaos prevented materials reaching some polling stations. Dar es Salaam region residents vote in their rescheduled poll in seven constituencies on 19 November, with 761 044 registered voters.
To win in the first ballot a candidate needs one vote over 50 per cent, or roughly 3 350 000 votes – a figure Mkapa has already surpassed.
Statistical analysis projects the final vote for Mkapa at roughly 4 million giving him around 62 per cent of the total votes cast. He is leading the count in over 200 of the 232 constituencies, including all 50 constituencies in Zanzibar.
In contrast, his main opponent, NCCR-Mageuzi’s Augustine Mrema, has polled only 1.5 million votes in the completed and incomplete constituencies and is projected as taking around 25 per cent of the total final vote. He has won in only one region, his home Kilimanjaro area, where his ethnic Chaga group voted overwhelmingly as a block against Mkapa and the CCM.
This means that under Tanzania’s new constitution, and for the first time since independence in December 1961, the Chaga will not have a seat in Cabinet as the new President can choose his team only from elected members.
Whilst Mrema’s 1.5 million voles is a credible performance at first sight, he has not done so well on closer examination.
He was badly defeated in all five Zanzibar regions coming last of the four candidates in three of them. In addition he has been relegated to third place in one mainland region.
Even where he clung to second place behind Mkapa, he has won only 30 per cent or more of the vote in six of the 25 regions. In seven regions he has won less than 10 per cent of the vote.
Trailing further back in third place is the Civic United Front (CUF) Presidential aspirant, Professor
Ibrahim Lipumba with just over 10 per cent of the vote. And in last place is the United Democratic Party (UDP) candidate, John Cheyo, with under four percent of the vote.
In contrast Mkapa has scored heavily nationwide. In his home Mtwara region he won 89.15 per cent of the vote from the area’s four ethnic groups.
In Lindi he took 85.20 percent, Tanga 75.47, Iringa 67.02, Morogoro 64.45, Rukwa 62.64, Arusha 59.78 and Mbeya 57.47.
On Unguja and Pemba (the two islands which together are known as Zanzibar) Mkapa won 50.8 per cent of the vote, marginally higher than the figure in elections a week earlier for Zanzibar’s President, Dr Salmin Amour.
Despite oft-stated fears of voting along religious and ethnic lines, and with the exception of Kilimanjaro, such tendencies do not appear to have manifested themselves in any significant way. (SARDC)
