Tanzania's main opposition party Chadema has opted to put pressure on the National Electoral Commission (NEC) to update the voters’ register instead of implementing electoral reforms ahead of this year’s elections.

Latest statistics from the National Bureau of Statistics indicate that 24 million people will be eligible to vote in the October elections, out of which six million will be voting for the first time.

Chadema deputy secretary-general for Zanzibar Salum Mwalim said the party was determined to ensure that all eligible voters are registered but the irregularities that marred the voters’ registration using biometric registration kit for the referendum on February 23 in Njombe region exposed the Commission’s poor preparation.

“The government conducts itself as if voter registration is a favour but it is a constitutional matter,” Mr Mwalim said.

This comes hardly a week after the NEC announced that the review of the Constitution would be suspended indefinitely following protests.

For example, Christian groups under the banner of the Christian Forum of Tanzania (CFT) asked their congregations to vote “No” in the referendum.

The Commission spent two months to register 392,634 voters in Njombe region, raising concerns that the commission would be unable to register all the voters countrywide before the general election.

The Biometric Voter Registration (BVR) kits used by NEC can register between 80 and 160 voters per day but the Commission has only 250 BVR kits out of the 8,000 kits required.

The government had promised to introduce electoral reforms soon after the referendum on the new constitution but time is not on its side.

The parliamentary session on the budget is expected to start the first week of May and until the end of June, after which parliament will be suspended until after the inauguration of the new government in January 2016.