by Bayano Valy – SANF 05 No 108
Over 15 million Tanzanian voters are expected to elect a successor to President Benjamin Mkapa on 14 December.
Mkapa has been in the helm of the country for a decade after winning back-to-back mandates of five years each.
The Union poll had initially been slated for 30 October but was postponed due to the death of the running mate of Freeman Mbowe, the presidential candidate of Chama Cha Demokrasia na Maendeleo (Chadema).
The unhappy event meant that the National Election Commission (NEC) had to push the Union elections to 14 December, as stipulated in the electoral law. This was to give Chadema a chance to field another vice-presidential candidate.
Chadema has now chosen a woman as Mbowe’s running mate.
There are eight candidates vying for the presidential position, including another woman, but the clear favourite to win is Jakaya Kikwete of the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM).
Kikwete has served government for 17 years, 10 as Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of the United Republic of Tanzania, which comprises the mainland and the archipelago of Zanzibar.
His main challengers are likely to be Mbowe and Ibrahim Lipumba of Civic United Front (CUF).
There are 13 parties running in the current elections but only the CCM, Chadema and CUF are likely to return members to the 324-seat Bunge, the Union parliament. The previous parliament had 295 members following the 2000 elections. The increase is due a constitutional provision that allows for change of the number of seats.
The Bunge has 232 constituency seats. A further 75 special seats representing 30 percent have been allocated to women, awarded on a proportional basis to the number of candidates a party returns. The elected president nominates a further 10 members.
The attorney general takes a reserved seat in parliament and one more seat is appointed. Five seats come from the House of Representatives of Zanzibar.
In addition, voters will elect 2,552 local wardens (councillors), a third of which are women.
Normally, the Union elections coincide with Zanzibar poll where Zanzibaris choose the president of the archipelago, members to the House of Representatives, as well as councillors. But Zanzibar proceeded with elections on 30 October and the islanders returned Amani Abeid Karume to a futher five-year term, and gave a majority to CCM.
Karume was re-elected by 53.2 percent of the vote, corresponding to 239,832 votes cast in his favour.
His closest challenger, CUF presidential candidate, Seif Sharif Hamad, managed to garner 46.1 percent of the vote, which accounts for 207,733 votes.
CCM swept 30 of 50 seats of the House of Representatives. The main opposition party in the archipelago, CUF, garnered 19 seats (18 in its main stronghold of Pemba, and one in the main island, Unguja).
The poll for a member of the House of Representative was cancelled in Dole, Unguja, and will be repeated on 14 December.
CUF challenged the outcome of the poll, claiming that it had not been free and fair, and has threatened violence. Indeed there has been a spate of bombings in Unguja, which caused material damage to property. The police are dealing with the problem, and normalcy is said to be returning.
Regional and international observers found the contest in Zanzibar to have been free and fair. The Southern African Development Community (SADC) Electoral Observer Mission, the main regional election observation team, said that Zanzibari poll had been “credible and legitimate.”
SEOM said that the outcome would “go a long way in contributing to the consolidation and strengthening of democracy not only in Zanzibar but also in the SADC region as a whole,” boding well for the nurturing of a culture of multipartysm as an essential instrument towards entrenchment of democracy.
The Commonwealth observer mission described the poll as “a good election”.
Zanzibar joined the mainland to form the United Republic of Tanzania on 26 April 1964. The mainland was then known as Tanganyika.
The union was created by the late Baba wa Taifa (Father of the Nation), Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, and Sheikh Abeid Karume, the father of the current president of Zanzibar.
