At least nine people were wounded and dozens arrested on Wednesday as police battled opposition supporters on Tanzania’s volatile Zanzibar archipelago during the country’s national elections.
One man was shot when security forces fired live rounds over the heads of demonstrators, another was stabbed and seven people, including an opposition candidate and a police officer, were beaten in melees across the main island in the semi-autonomous Indian Ocean territory, witnesses and officials said.
Police opened fire and detained dozens in Bumbwini and Potoa constituencies — about 35km north of Stone Town, the historic centre of Zanzibar city — when opposition supporters tried to block people they claimed were bogus voters from casting ballots, they said.
”Many illegal voters were brought in early in the morning, but when we protested, the police fired in the air,” said a witness named Omar who identified himself as a supporter of the opposition Civic United Front (CUF).
Six opposition backers, including candidate Rashid Sudi, were beaten by police and sustained injuries requiring urgent medical attention, witnesses and hospital sources said.
In Stone Town itself, one person was stabbed in the stomach by supporters of the ruling Revolutionary Party (CCM) during a similar opposition protest over alleged bogus voters and polling irregularities, witnesses and medics said.
Ramadhan Kinyogo, the head Zanzibar’s Criminal Investigation Department, said one police officer had been wounded and one reported missing.
”One of our officers has been beaten and one is missing,” he said. ”We are following up in all the incidents.”
Three more people sustained unspecified injuries in the Stone Town, bringing the toll of injured to 12, a police official added.
The clashes were similar to those that erupted six weeks ago when Zanzibaris elected local officials six weeks ago and police used tear gas to break up opposition crowds protesting alleged irregularities, including bogus voters.
The CUF maintains the CCM stole the Zanzibari elections through ballot fraud and has claimed the ruling party is using the same method to rig Wednesday’s elections for the presidency and Parliament of the Union of Tanzania.
Police, who were patrolling the Stone Town, barred journalists and observers from entering halls where ballots were being counted, telling they are not needed, according to an Agence France-Presse correspondent.
The union was created in 1964 between mainland Tanganyika, as it was known then, and Zanzibar, which has been an opposition stronghold for years and the site of deadly political violence in the past.
While the CCM narrowly won Zanzibar’s October 30 polls, it is widely expected to cruise to victory in the national elections due to its large backing on the mainland. — Sapa-AFP