On the quasi-autonomous Zanzibar islands, some 439,000 registered voters will, as well as voting in the Union elections, select a President of Zanzibar, a House of Representatives and local government councilors. But across the water from the mainland tensions are high as the political outcome on the Isles is very much in doubt, as they seem to be following the tumultuous 1995 election.

This second multi-party election since independence in 1961 comes just over a year after the death of the founder of the United Republic of Tanzania, the much beloved Julius Nyerere.

The National Electoral Commission which runs the presidential, parliamentary and civic elections reports that all is well in terms of preparations for the three polls it is responsible for and the Zanzibar Electoral Supervisory Commission which is responsible for voting on the islands for its president and legislators also reports readiness. Just to be certain, however, that peace is maintained, the Tanzanian Defence Forces are patrolling the two islands of Pemba and Unguja under orders to maintain peace and stability until the new president and government is sworn in.

President Benjamin Mkapa is defending his first term as head of state which he won in 1995, heading the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) party against three opponents. He is expected to win easily over Ibrahim Lipumba of the Civic United Front (CUF); Augustine Mrema of the Tanzania Labour Party (TLP) and John Cheyo of the United Democratic Party (UDP).

Voters can choose between 13 political parties vying for the 232 elected seats in the Union Parliament, including 50 allocated to Zanzibar. There are 862 candidates seeking election. Added to the 232 seats in Parliament are a 15 percent quota (about 48 seats) set for women and 10 MPs nominated by the president.

Only two candidates are seeking the Zanzibar presidency: Amani Abeid Karume, son of the revolutionary founder of modern Zanzibar is carrying the banner for CCM, while Seif Shariff Hamad who came close to defeating the outgoing CCM president, Salmin Amour, for CUF in 1995 is hoping to upset the status quo. He lost by less than one percent in the last election which was widely disputed, creating severe tensions which have not been resolved to this day.

However, leaders of all major political parties at their closing rallies have made it clear multi-party democracy has taken hold in Tanzania and that they will accept the verdict of the voters.

In the 1995 election Mkapa received 61.8 percent of the presidential vote, far ahead of his nearest rival, Mrema (then running for NCCR-Maguezi) with 27.8 percent ; Lipumba of CUF had 6.4 percent and Cheyo of NDP, 4 percent. While Mrema is now running for a new party, some analysts think it may be CUF which could come second while agreeing that Mkapa leads the field by a wide margin.

The electoral officials have a big job. This is the first time they have held all three elections on the same day and even some electoral commissioners wonder privately if they will have enough time, but some results will begin to trickle in by tomorrow evening as polls on the mainland open at 7 a.m. and close at 4 p.m. (on Zanzibar, they close at 5 p.m.). There will be 38,364 polling stations to supervise, each handling ballots for presidential, parliamentary and civic voters. Counting will be done in the polling stations.

Major trends are expected by Monday and perhaps even final, if unofficial, results in the mainland voting. Zanzibar, if it follows the usual form will probably take three or even four days to finalize official results.

The results of all voting can only become official once they are announced by the relevant electoral commissions, all other results are considered partial and unofficial until commission announcements, not likely before Tuesday. Indeed, the problems of Zanzibar in 1995 resulted from CUF's decision to announce its own results while the electoral commission delayed its announcement.

There are some 212 regional, continental and international observers accredited. The SADC Parliamentary Forum has a team of 35 MPs and 15 staff from the southern Africa deployed in 15 of the 25 regions of the country, including Zanzibar.

The 12-member Commonwealth team has a special stake in Zanzibar especially, where it invested considerable time and effort in brokering an 11-point deal as a result of the stalemate from the 1995 election which left Zanzibar's economy in tatters as investors and donors virtually boycotted the islands and CUF legislators boycotted their seats in the Zanzibar House.

Other observer missions include the Organization of African Unity (OAU) and the European Union as well as several individual countries such as Nigeria and Canada.

The issues have been overshadowed by personalities as the opposition tries its best to discredit the economic reform programme of CCM and on Zanzibar by the CCM-CUF tensions.

The main concerns of most Tanzanians are economic -- poverty, unemployment, corruption, infrastructure - and social - health, education and social services.

Mkapa has embarked on a radical economic reform programme, much of which involves privatization of the country's many state enterprises, repayment of the country's huge foreign debt and wooing foreign investors and donors. In a sense, he has turned away from the Nyerere doctrines and embraced private enterprise. It is a tough programme to sell, as many parasatals have either closed or been forced to support themselves, often resulting in loss of employment.

In return Mkapa can boast of debt writeoffs under the enhanced highly indebted poor countries initiative (HIPC) and a growing interest in investment, transforming the economy from one of the poorest in the region to one with great potential.

Tanzania's peaceful and stable society is something in which it takes pride and now has investors from South Africa, Canada, Britain, Japan, the Philippines and Germany putting money into everything from beer to telecommunications.