Tanzania’s Revolutionary Party (CCM) cemented its four-decade grip on power on Sunday when presidential election results confirmed victory for its candidate, Foreign Minister Jakaya Kikwete.
Kikwete (55) took 80% of the vote in Wednesday’s polls, demolishing nine challengers in the country’s third elections since the introduction of multiparty politics in 1992.
The CCM also won an outright majority in the Parliament.
Kikwete will succeed President Benjamin Mkapa, who was constitutionally barred from seeking a third term as leader of the East African nation.
Losing candidates included Civic United Front’s (CUF) Ibrahim Lipumba who gained 11,66%, the Democracy and Development or Chadema party’s Freeman Mbowe who won 5,9% and Augustine Mrema of the Tanzania Labour Party (TLP).
Turnout was 72% of the 16,3-million voters. The election was peaceful on the mainland but marred by clashes on the semi-autonomous Indian Ocean territory of Zanzibar which left at least 20 people injured. Dozens were arrested.
As the Revolutionary Party victory was announced, Kikwete, who collapsed due to heat exhaustion on the last day of campaigning last Tuesday, was resting in the northern Tanzanian town of Arusha, his aides said.
”Before he left for Arusha, he was confident of winning,” said campaign spokesperson Muhingo Rohemamu.
”He said while his opponents focused on personalities, he focused on policies issues,” said Rohemamu, adding Kikwete would travel to Dar es Salaam on Monday.
Tensions remained high in Zanzibar’s remote northern islet of Tumbatu — where party supporters clashed over allegations of poll fraud — a day after aid workers and journalists were barred from travelling there.
Scores of people fled the islet saying they were attacked, witnesses said, but Zanzibar authorities say the situation is peaceful.
Police officials said on Sunday they deployed enough forces to stem the violence and planned to set up a police post in the area about 29km north of Zanzibar city.
National electoral commission chairperson Lewis Makame declined to declare Kikwete the poll winner, telling reporters he would announce the final outcome ”very soon, maybe later tonight or tomorrow morning”.
The Revolutionary Party, which has ruled the country since independence from Britain in 1961, also won October 30 elections for Zanzibar’s separate presidency and legislature, amid charges of fraud levelled by the United Front.
The mainland’s polls were scheduled on the same day, but were postponed due to the death of a candidate.
The ruling party won 206 parliamentary seats compared to 19 for the United Front, five for Democracy and Development and one each for the Labour Party and the United Democratic Party, according to final official results.
The United Front’s seats were all in its political stronghold of Zanzibar.
Opposition parties hoped to capitalise on widespread public frustration with corruption, endemic poverty and joblessness, and campaigned hard outside towns and cities where most of Tanzania’s 35-million people live.
But it complained of an uneven playing field, accusing Kikwete, who was accompanied by Mkapa on the stump, of using state resources in his campaign.
The country is heavily dependent on agriculture, which is still struggling to shrug off the effects of failed experiments in ”African socialism” championed by late independence hero Julius Nyerere.
Tanzania was a socialist one-party state until 1992 when Nyerere’s successor, Ali Hassan Mwinyi, allowed opposition parties to contest elections three years later.
During his 10-year tenure, Mkapa moved the country closer to a free-market economy, earning Tanzania praise from international lenders but leaving most of his compatriots struggling below the poverty line.
Kikwete, a longtime Nyerere loyalist, has vowed to continue his predecessor’s policies. – Sapa-AFP