Tanzanian election hit by fraud claims
Opposition activists cry foul over irregularities in the presidential polling process
Tanzanians voted on Wednesday in an election overshadowed by opposition complaints of irregularities such as ballot-box stuffing, as President John Magufuli seeks a second term in office.
Observers say the country is sliding into autocracy under Magufuli and his Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) party, in power since 1961.
After what rights groups have slammed as a sustained crackdown on political competition, the opposition had already voiced concern about the fairness of the election ahead of polling; on Wednesday parties on mainland Tanzania and semiautonomous Zanzibar cried foul.
“Voting reports indicate widespread irregularities in the form of preventing our polling agents from accessing polling stations,” presidential candidate Tundu Lissu of the Chadema party said on Twitter.
“If this continues, mass democratic action will be the only option to protect the integrity of the election.”
Chadema secretary general John Mnyika told AFP that its MP in the Kawe district of Dar es Salaam, Halima Mdee, was briefly arrested after protesting the discovery of ballot boxes stuffed with “pre-marked votes” in favour of CCM.
In Zanzibar, where the opposition Act-wazalendo party said 10 people were killed in the run-up to the vote,
party official Muhene Said Rashid showed journalists piles of stamped ballots with tick marks next to Magufuli’s name, which he said had been seized from CCM “zealots”.
Rashid said party agents had been kicked out of some polling stations and “we expect they will be kicked out during counting”.
National Electoral Commission director Wilson Mahera told reporters that counting had begun. “We are ready for the job,” he said. It was not clear when results would be released.
Tanzania does not allow the legal contestation of presidential election results.
Zanzibar tension
Voting in Zanzibar, which elects its own president and MPS, as well as the Tanzanian president, was largely peaceful — but only after police and security fired tear gas and live rounds and arrested scores of people
on Monday night and Tuesday.
The election took place amid heavy security. As polls closed, AFP reporters saw two armoured personnel carriers loaded with soldiers driving through the streets of the capital.
“This election is a total mess, there is no election here,” Jiba Shaame Ali, 32, told AFP at a polling station in the Mtoni area.
Opposition leader Seif Sharif Hamad has accused the governing party of trying to steal every vote since multiparty democracy was introduced in 1995.
“I feel proud that I have managed to vote this year,” said Hamad, after casting his ballot and slamming the election as a “farce” after his detention for several hours on Tuesday.
Social media blocked
The election, for which about 29-million people were registered to vote, took place largely without external
monitors. Most international media were unable to gain accreditation on the mainland, and social media networks were blocked, accessible only through virtual private networks.
Magufuli, whose campaign against corruption and wasteful spending initially drew him praise, voted in Dodoma, urging people to turn out to vote. “We also need to maintain our peace and I always say there is life after elections,” he said in the Tanzanian capital.
On mainland Tanzania, Lissu, 52, of the Chadema opposition party is Magufuli’s greatest challenger.
He returned to the country in July after three years abroad recovering from 16 bullet wounds sustained in what he believes was a politically motivated assassination attempt.
Lissu’s return reinvigorated an opposition demoralised by arrests, attacks and a ban on rallies outside election time.