Tanzania 
Zanzibar elections 'a disaster'

afrol.com, 1 November - Human rights groups call for international action following what the call an "election disaster". Votes on the Tanzanian island lacked transparency and opposition candidates were not given a fair chance.

Zanzibar, forming the "-zan" of the TanZanian Union, had their general elections, together with mainland Tanzania, on Sunday. Both local and federal governments were to be elected. The election scandal on the island has even lead to that the results of the all-Tanzanian presidential elections, where sitting President Mkapa is supposed to win with a big margin, still cannot be published, to great irritation of the mainlanders.

As riot police and opposition supporters clash on the streets of Zanzibar, following elections which Commonwealth observers have declared a "shambles", the human rights organisation Article 19 today called upon the international community to take tough action to resolve the long-running political crisis on the islands.

Article 19 had been warning since April 2000 that Zanzibar's elections would be a farce unless there was urgent reform on three urgent issues. These issues were: Reform of the Zanzibar Electoral Commission, which remains an instrument of government; The continuing harassment of opposition leaders, including ongoing trials on trumped-up treason charges; and the abuse by government of the publicly-funded media, which has pumped out pro-government propaganda throughout the election campaign.

18 leaders of the main opposition party, the Civic United Front (CUF), have now been in prison for over two years on charges of treason and the government has been dragging out the trial. The CUF's leader, Sheikh Sherif Hamad, faces equally dubious charges of assault and illegal possession of weapons following disturbances in April outside the court room during the last hearing of the treason case.

No reforms took place and the international community largely abandoned its efforts to promote change ahead of last week's elections following the collapse earlier this year of a 1998 Commonwealth-sponsored accord to resolve the political crisis, the organisation now observes.

Jon Lunn of Article 19's Africa Programme stated today that he would "welcome the declaration by the Commonwealth observer mission in Zanzibar that the elections there should be annulled. But we regret that it has taken the realisation of our worst fears to produce such strong statements."

Article 19 was thus repeating the call first made in July for the international community to send a high-level delegation of representatives from the Commonwealth, the UN and the OAU to Tanzania. "It should assist in scheduling new elections and creating the level playing-field which the Tanzanian and Zanzibar authorities conspired to resist this time around," a spokesman says.

- The time has come for the spotlight to shine on the long-running failure of the Union government to discharge its responsibilities to promote and protect human rights on Zanzibar, Jon Lunn concluded. "For too long it has washed its hands of the situation and allowed Zanzibar members of the ruling Chama cha Mapinduzi to run the islands as their private property. If the current crisis over the elections is not speedily addressed, there is a real danger that violence on Zanzibar will spiral out of control, with potential consequences for the mainland".

Reportedly, even Tanzanian President Mkapa shared the universal mainland anger over Zanzibar's conduct of the elections.

Source: Based on Article 19 

© afrol.com. Texts and graphics may be reproduced freely, under the condition that their origin is clearly referred to, see Conditions.    You can contact afrol.com at mail@afrol.com