Tanzanian authorities have confirmed another resounding victory for the ruling Chama cha Mapinduzi (CCM) in local government elections, even though the outcome raised persistent questions about fairness, just as in previous elections.
In final results announced by the Ministry of Regional Administration and Local Governments (Tamisemi) at 10pm on Thursday, CCM won 99.01 per cent of the village, street and hamlet seats at stake in the November 27 ballot, again leaving the opposition in a befuddled state.
CCM took 99 per cent of village chair seats, 98 per cent hamlet chair seats, and 98.8 percent street chair seats. Main opposition party Chadema led the rest of the field with a score of 0.79 per cent while ACT-Wazalendo, the Civic United Front (CUF) and NCCR Mageuzi got less than 0.1 per cent each.
Official results from the 2019 poll gave CCM a win ratio of 99.9 per cent in the villages, 99.4 per cent (hamlets) and 100 per cent (streets).
While opposition parties fared slightly better this time round, the kind of improvement they were hoping for did not happen, as CCM retained almost total control of grassroots political governance.
But the outcome was hardly surprising, given the sequence of controversial events pointing to fixing before and during the latest polls.
As of Friday morning, the parties were still trying to pick themselves up from the latest walloping by the ruling party. Chadema’s top leaders began an emergency meeting in Dar es Salaam on Friday to discuss the election events in their totality and decide on a way forward for the party.
“The party’s official position will be made public at the end of Friday’s meeting,” Chadema protocol and communications director John Mrema said in a statement before the results came out on Thursday. By 4pm on Friday, the meeting was still in progress.
Former ACT-Wazalendo party leader Zitto Kabwe said in an X post late on Thursday that he had already met with all the party’s candidates and agents in Kigoma’s Ujiji municipality to “reflect on the next course of action”.
According to Mr Kabwe, the poll was “marred by massive rigging including ballot stuffing”. He announced that ACT-Wazalendo would hold a public rally in Ujiji.
Meanwhile, CCM’s publicity and ideology secretary Amos Makalla also scheduled a press briefing for Friday, where he was expected to address lingering public scepticism about the credibility of the results.
But while all this was happening, many political analysts were already looking ahead to the General Election slated for October 2025 and voicing their fears of a repeat of the “fraudulent” tactics seen in the civic poll.
These concerns are prevailing despite the fact that next year’s election, which will cover the presidency and parliamentary representation, will be supervised by the recently renamed Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) rather than Tamisemi.
One pundit described the way the civic poll was conducted as "a gambit by CCM and the state to test the waters and lay the groundwork for stealing the votes more properly next year."
Just like five years ago, reports of fake ballots, voters manipulation and opposition candidates and agents being harassed and treated roughly by law enforcement officers dominated the proceedings from the word go.
Midway through the voting exercise on November 27, Chadema published a notice listing multiple irregularities it had already noted in the polling booth procedures being applied in many areas across the country being as the day progressed.
But announcing the poll results on Thursday night, Tamisemi Minister Mohamed Mchengerwa reiterated his previous assertions that the ministry deserved to be praised for conducting the election "by the book, in line with all the rules and procedures."
Mr Mchengerwa said almost 26.97 million ballots were cast, equivalent of 86.36 percent of the 31.28 million voters who had been registered, in 12,271 villages, 4,264 streets and 63,849 hamlets.
According to Tamisemi, at least 12 of Tanzania’s 19 registered political parties won chairperson or governing council seats, although for some of them it was in token numbers of just one or two seats.
The parties named were CCM, Chadema, ACT Wazalendo, CUF, NCCR Mageuzi, Chama cha Demokrasia Makini, National League for Democracy (NLD), Alliance for Democratic Change (ADC), Chama cha Kijamii (CCK), United Democratic Party (UDP), Union for Multiparty Democracy (UMD) and Chama cha Ukombozi wa Umma (Chaumma).
