Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. (News of The South) – Millions of Tanzanians will tomorrow cast their municipal votes in a highly contested election which has 333 555 municipal seats up for grabs.
A few weeks ago Tanzania’s leading opposition parties announced that they would be boycotting the local elections scheduled for the 24th of November.
This came after the main opposition party, Chadema claimed that 94 percent of its candidates had been disqualified on spurious grounds.
Opposition parties have entered and then boycotted secondary elections in anticipation of national ones before. These boycotts have punctuated protests which have escalated since 2016.
However, The government has denied foul play, but Chadema still accuses the ruling party, Chama Cha Mapinduzi of electoral manipulation.
Commenting on the political situation in Tanzania, Oryem Nyeko, Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch said, “the government’s regressive policies and actions have stifled the media, sown fear among civil society, and restricted the playing field for political parties in the lead-up to the 2020 national elections.
With only a year to go, this government needs to reverse these patterns of abuse and demonstrate a genuine commitment to the rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly as protected in the constitution and under human rights treaties to which Tanzania is a state party.”
The local elections are an important prequel to the 2020 national elections. They will be read as an indication of parties’ popularity, which will inform analyses of how plausible future elections results are.
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