October 2010 Tanzania general elections: lessons from the 2009 local elections

On 25th of October 2009, Tanzanians casted their votes to choose leaders in the Local Government. Such leaders include village Chairpersons and the village council. The whole process started on 4th October with the residence registration for seven days followed by candidates’ campaigns as from 15th to 24th October. The election process as it has always been were supervised by TAMISEMI, the whole process this year started with a meeting organized by TAMISEMI at Morogoro where all political parties met to determine the rules of the game. It is hinted that some parties disagreed with what was discussed in the meeting and so they did not sign the agreement.

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AP 2000 as a stakeholder in democracy, believing in the ten principles for a democratic culture and conflict reduction which include: Participation, consensus, transparency, rule of law, human rights, truthfulness, culture of competition, civic competence, integrity and equal opportunity. In its endeavor to assure itself that the LGE adhered to the above principles, conducted a research on the election process for several parts of the country such as Ileje District, Tarime District, Moshi District, Lushoto amongst others. Such research or study was done through reports complied by various NGOs, Political Parties, individuals and the government itself. In our study the following were our findings:

The registration process which ran as from 4th-10th October was characterized by poor response all over the country. In fact most districts had estimates of the would be registered number of persons but unfortunately in no district that the estimate was attained. In most areas only half the estimated number was realized. A good example is Tarime District where the District Council had earlier estimated that 202,279 people would be registered; however on the contrary, only 96,324 people were actually registered and out of these only 70% voted. This poor response has been deduced to emanate from the following reasons; low publicity of the LGE process, confusion on voters’ card and the requirement to register as a resident for LGE especially at Mpanda Central were just before this registration process the issuance of voters’ ID had been on process, lack of civic awareness and insufficient registration period among others.

During the voting process, voting was done by writing down the names of the candidates one elects. Such names were to be seven (7) or nine (9) in towns and even twenty five (25) in rural areas written down out of lets say 30 to 40 names depending on Party participation in the election. This process is not only tiresome even to the articulates but is oppressive, segregative and allows the room for lobbying and deceit by those who help those who cant read and write thus denying them their constitutional right to vote for some one they choose. Indeed this process proved a great failure as some Parties actually used this opportunity to make sure that they choose their candidates when they offer help. This was necessitated by the fact that the election monitors were not strict and ignorant. For example at Mtenga Polling Station in Vunjo Constituency Moshi, a CCM agent helped people who could not read and write and by doing so it is alleged that he actually voted for CCM candidates. Though he was stopped by the Residing Officer, he slapped her spitting threats to make sure that the authorities deal with her after the elections. Most stakeholders have suggested that instead the process should involve ticking against the photo of the relevant candidate.

The process of nominating candidates at the Party level and there acceptance as election candidates was in most cases tainted with malicious objections, discretionary appointments and sponsorship and fraud. In most cases this was at the detriment of Opposition Parties as the candidates they sponsored were maliciously yet successfully objected thus removed from contesting. This happened after a contradictory statement was issued from the Prime Minister’s Office stating that Candidates should be sponsored by the lowest Party authority contradicting Regulation 11(f) of LGE Rules which states that a candidate must be sponsored by a registered Party regardless the rank. This created a room for malicious objections that a candidate is not sponsored by the lowest Party Authority. Even through the eye of a normal person this directive will automatically favor CCM which has a countrywide network of Branches in every Street, village and sub-village unlike most Opposition Parties which are still young and do not have such a network thus equating them to CCM is treating the unequal equal. This resulted into injustice all over the country starting with the now famous HANDENI CASE, Sinza D objections of CHADEMA candidate and in Moshi Njia Panda where a CCM candidate was not nominated by his Party though he won by 150 votes the Party nomination election.

TAMISEMI is blamed for violating the electoral rules and poorly facilitating the whole election process. The LGE rules provide that the time table for the whole process should be issued 90 days earlier, this was violated when TAMISEMI issued directives stating that the Registration process should start at 4th -10th October instead of the 21 days legally required period that was to run from 4th-24th Sept. This and other directives issued as shown earlier manifest how the great principle of Rule of Law was manifestly disregarded by TAMISEMI. Under poor facilitation by TAMISEMI, despite having assigned Tsh.13 Billion to the electoral process which is almost 9 times greater than the TShs. 1.4 Billion used in last elections polling stations allover the country were reportedly to miss some of the required facilities such as stationeries and posters indicating that an area is a polling station. In line with this, election officers were paid a token TShs. 5000 as their allowance. This is very minimal and inhuman compared to the work they perform. For example some electoral officers in Ileje District had to use TShs. 3000 for transport only everyday when commuting to and from their respective electoral posts, this create an environment that favors corruption as it happened in Njia Panda Moshi District where one Usiwajali Hidaya an Assistant Returning Officer forged documents purported to belong to a CHADEMA contestant with the intent of removing him from contesting (The case is already reported with RB No. H1/PE/5/09 of 4th Oct. 2009). It is alleged that the Assistant Returning Officer was bribed by the CCM contestant TShs. 300,000.

The issuance of the contesting forms by the electoral officers was allegedly maliciously done with intent of denying opposition parties a chance to contest. This has been reported to occur in several parts of the country where contesting forms were very few therefore only CCM contestants who seem to have had insider information of the situation got the forms as they went first. This situation left many opposition parties without contesting in some areas leaving the ruling Party to go “unopposed”. This is a violation of the principle of equal opportunity and a denial of to ones’ constitutional right which can be enforced against.

Poor security offered to the whole process in areas or posts where election took place. The campaigns and voting in most areas were guarded by neither Police Officers nor Militia men. This occurred for example in Ileje District and Moshi District where especially in Moshi the campaigns sometimes were violent and so they needed guarding but the same was not available. However in some areas huge instruments and guarded Policemen were at the voting stations thus due to there magnitude most voters confess that they terrified and so declined going to vote.

Campaigns focused on accusations and counter accusations and were dominated by Mps or Persons wishing to contest for Parliamentary seats in the 2010 elections. This denied LGE candidates a chance to express themselves and prophesy their Party’s manifesto by showing how the same can be used to solve their daily problems. This is evidenced by the accusations and counter accusations between Hon. Kimaro Aloyce of Vunjo and the TLP chairperson Mr. Augustine L. Mrema in Moshi District among others.

On the other hand several things were impressive and thus need to be upheld with some few rectifications on implementation. We noted that TAMISEMI intended to make the whole process participatory by involving all political parties in setting up the rules of the game. Though this had some shortcomings, but still it’s a good thing that only need to be improved to make surer that consensus is reached and all that is agreed is perfect and implemented without a drop of even a single letter. Assigning Tshs.13 Billion to the election process is a good move as it ensures that the process runs smoothly and minimizes the chances of its officers being bribed as a result of an empty stomach. However this should be handled In a transparent and accountable manner that will make sure that no dubious dealings are done against the money. This year’s election was a shame as far as financing was concerned as despite the huge allocation still the money was not seen at the ground, in fact this calls for investigators to probe into the matter for assurance. Lastly though CCM won by 93.86% this year, it is evident that Opposition Parties have started getting deeper into the grass root leadership as last 2004 elections CCM won by 96% hence dropping by 2.14% these elections. In line with this, compared to 2004 elections, this year’s elections were more vocal and stimulating as slow as the process was more than 2004 elections, thus showing a rise in civic competence amongst Tanzanians.