E-mail from Tanzanian. 16.Nov.'95

DAR ES SALAAM, (Reuter) Nov. 15, By Matt Bigg
A Tanzanian opposition party broke ranks with the rest of the opposition Wednesday, saying it would take part in a rerun of elections in the East African country's capital, Dar es Salaam, Sunday.
Chadema, the third largest of 10 opposition parties, did not attend an opposition coalition news conference to denounce the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM-Party for the Revolution), which is set for victory.
''We don't agree it is necessary to boycott the elections (rerun) in Dar es Salaam,'' Chadema chairman Edwin Mtei told Reuters, adding Chadema would take part in next Sunday's polls.
The party has no candidate for Tanzania's presidency but has taken three parliamentary seats in the Oct. 29 elections, denounced by the opposition as rigged and by observers as chaotic.
The opposition said Tuesday it would boycott the rerun in the capital and was withdrawing from the presidential race as it had no trust in the state-run National Electoral Commission (NEC).
The pullout left CCM candidate Benjamin Mkapa almost certain to take the presidency when the result is announced next week.
''What happened at the election was not an accident. It was planned that whatever way the coin fell Mkapa would become president,'' NCCR-Mageuzi leader Augustine Mrema said at the news conference.
''CCM on the mainland and CCM on Zanzibar are the same -- they are thieves,'' said Civic United Front presidential candidate Ibrahim Lipumba. CCM says the polls were free and fair, but observer teams have expressed reservations.
The nine opposition parties pledged to expel any members who stood Sunday in Dar es Salaam, the last stage of Tanzania's first multiparty elections which have dragged on for three weeks.
Elections were canceled in Dar es Salaam and rescheduled for Nov. 19 after a shortage of ballot papers and money to pay polling agents prevented many voters from casting ballots.
ZANZIBAR, Nov.14.My friend said on phone Seif Shariff of CUF met President Ali Hassan Mwinyi officialy. And CUF's member went Europe to meet Commonwealth Group of Observers.
DAR ES SALAAM, Nov.13.(Reuter) By Matt Bigg
All opposition candidates, denouncing widespread election irregularities, withdrew from Tanzania's presidential race Monday, paving the way for the ruling party's Benjamin Mkapa to become head of state.
At a news conference, a coalition of 10 opposition parties said they would also boycott repeat presidential and parliamentary elections in the capital scheduled for Sunday.
''Because of the irregularities that took place everywhere I do not see any point in contesting the presidency,'' said Augustine Mrema, leader and presidential candidate for the NCCR-Mageuzi party.
He said the opposition had no confidence in the National Electoral Commission, which ran the Oct. 29 election condemned by independent monitors as chaotic and by the opposition as rigged.
Ibrahim Lipumba of the Civic United Front, or CUF, and John Cheyo, leader of the United Democratic Party, or UDP, also announced they were withdrawing from the presidential race.
The opposition bowed out facing almost certain defeat from the Oct. 29 elections and losing its legal battle for the presidential and parliamentary voting to be declared null and void.
The high court earlier Monday rejected two opposition applications to have the Dar es Salaam rerun canceled and the announcement of presidential election results suspended.
In an hour-long ruling, Judge Josephat Mackanja dismissed the application for the rerun to be scrapped, saying the opposition had not shown how it would suffer if it went ahead.
''The ruling should be awarded only in such cases reasonably free of doubt,'' said Mackanja.
The three-man court also rejected an opposition application for the suspension of the official announcement of results from the Oct. 29 presidential election in Tanzania.
The ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi, or CCM-Party for the Revolution, was set for a landslide victory in the parliamentary race, having gained 80 percent of the seats declared so far.
According to unofficial results CCM has taken 60 percent of the vote in the parliamentary election, putting it well on course for Mkapa to take over from President Ali Hassan Mwinyi, who is stepping down after serving two five-year terms.
The Dar es Salaam rerun was ordered after a shortage of ballot papers prevented large numbers of people from voting.
A 150-person Commonwealth Group of Observers has said the Tanzania elections were marked by widespread chaos and confusion on a scale never seen before in other Commonwealth countries.
A local monitoring group declared the elections were neither free nor fair.
The opposition CUF on the islands of Zanzibar appealed Saturday to the Commonwealth to pressure authorities to annul results of presidential elections there on Oct. 22.
CCM was narrrowly declared the winner of the islands' presidential election but foreign observers doubted the results.
The CCM has ruled as the sole legal party in Tanzania since 1965. The Tanzania union was formed when the Indian Ocean islands of Zanzibar united with Tanganyika in 1964.
Copyright (c) Reuters America Inc.
DAR ES SALAAM, Nov 8 (Reuter)
An African growth industry, the observation of elections in the new multi-party era, suffered a jarring setback in Tanzania.
Hundreds of foreign observers were flown in by an array of organisations to help ensure that the first multi-party votes for the past 30 years were free and fair.
They found themselves embroiled in a conflict about their mandate and their role in Africa's efforts to build democracy.
Bickering between different observer groups centred on the decision to work under the umbrella of the United Nations.
''That is definitely the last time we accept U.N. leadership in an African election,'' complained one western diplomat convinced that crude rigging of the count in Zanzibar's regional polls affected the outcome.
''The U.N. people have a separate agenda which is to get along with any Zanzibari government,'' he said.
For opposition parties in both Zanzibar on October 22 and the vote a week later for Tanzania as a whole, the 420 observers were vital components in their campaign to oust the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM).
But matters turned sour in both polls and instead of a quick and firm response from observers, there was a long silence.
''If they don't come up with a strong statement then their presence here was just a waste of taxpayers' money in their countries,'' said Seif Shariff Hamad, the opposition presidential candidate in Zanzibar.
Tanzania's western donors, led by long-standing friends in Scandinavia who forged a special bond with ex-president Julius Nyerere, spent about $20 million on the two elections.
But critics among the observers said the donors were blinded by their misty-eyed attachment to the nation which Nyerere built -- poor but stable and free of the coups and tyranny which scarred so much of post-independence Africa.
''There was no accountability, they just poured the money in,'' said an American observer.
Tanzania's 17 main donors, who disburse at least $500 million a year in aid, complained on October 27 of ''serious discrepancies'' in the Zanzibar count.
But the donors then fell silent in public and critics suggested that they were embarrassed about the no-strings contract they had with the National Electoral Commission.
The NEC took the money but refused technical assistance and later presided over chaotic voting in the capital Dar es Salaam and some provincial areas.
''Rome was not built in a day. We are not narrowly focussing on elections but on democratisation as a whole,'' said Flemming Bjork Pedersen, Denmark's ambassador to Tanzania. His country was a major donor for the elections.
For Augustine Mrema, the main opposition presidential candidate in Tanzania, the donors and their observers have failed to understand the raw reality of African politics.
''We have leaders who accept multi-partyism in theory but not in practice because they are not prepared to relinquish power.
''The problem is that observers only observe. They don't have any powers to intervene when they see things going wrong,'' said Mrema, who was trying to wrest power from CCM.
The opposition alleged rigging by the CCM, the ruling party was firm in its denials and the observers kept quiet until a group sent by the Commonwealth reported ''chaos and confusion'' on a scale it had never previously witnessed.
''Observers should...make no observation to the media or anyone else,'' said a briefing note from U.N. headquarters in New York about the Tanzanian elections, invoking safety rules.
''The task of observers is to witness the electoral process which may lead to political change - observers are not agents of change or participants in the process!'' the note, obtained by Reuters, told the senior U.N. official in Dar es Salaam.
There is a familiar scenario, played out in many African countries during the slow demise of one-party rule.
A ruling party is forced by donor pressure to accept multi- party elections but the opposition cries foul and the incumbents return to power in a deeply divided society.
The observers have one line in their walk-on role: ''The elections were broadly free and fair despite flaws which did not alter the final outcome.''
The beaten opposition leaders in Kenya and Cameroon railed against such verdicts.
Among the exceptions were pioneering elections in Namibia and South Africa but both countries were ending a violent era of minority rule by whites who faced impossible odds against black majorities.
Veteran leaders in Benin and Zambia accepted defeat but the new authorities in Zambia, delving into his Malawian origins, are now trying to disbar former president Kenneth Kaunda from staging a comeback.
Many African votes are held in countries where parties in power since independence control the process.
In Ivory Coast, President Henri Bedie strolled back into office in October after his government barred one leading opponent on grounds of parentage and another boycotted because of the uneven playing field.
Bedie's winning margin of more than 95 percent was worthy of the days of one-party rule.
''There are some elections I wouldn't touch with a 10-foot pole,'' said an observer in Tanzania.
Copyright (c) Reuters America Inc.
7.Nov. 95.I got E-mail from Tanzanian.ZANZIBAR ELECTION RESULTS (Kiswahili)
Kuna habari kwamba baada ya nchi 18 za magharibi kulalamikia jinsi uchaguzi wa zanzibar ulivyokwenda na kumpa ushindi dk.
Salmin,Umoja wa mataifa(UN) umemwaandikia barua rais wa Muungano Ali Hssan mwinyi kumtaka atambuwe kuwa rais wa Zanzibar ni Seif Sharif Hamadi na siyo dk.salmin.Barua imeandikwa juzi na imetoa wiki mbili kwa Rais Mwinyi kufanya hivyo kwa vile wachunguzi wote waliyoshiriki katika uchaguzi wa zanzibar wana ushahidi kuwa Seif sharif wa chama cha CUF alishinda;hata hivyo barua hiyo haikusema hatua zitakazochukuliwa na UN ikiwa madai yao yatapuuzwa.
LAKINI wakati mataifa ya nje yanaendelea kulalamika na wananchi wengi kuwa na wasiwasi,leo dk.Salmin Amour rais aliyeko madarakani hivi sasa ametangaza baraza lake la mawaziri kwa kipindi cha miaka mitano ijayo(1995-2000).
Waziri kiongozi mpya ni-dk.Mohammed Gharib Bilali.
Naibu waziri kiongozi na waziri wa Elimu-bwana Ramadhani Mapuri.
waziri wa nchi afisi ya Rais -Mohammed Ramia.
Wanawake na watoto ni -Asha Bakari.
Mawasiliano na Uchukuzi -Amani Karume.
waziri wa Fedha -Amina Salum ali.
Biashara,viwanda na masoko -Taimur Saleh.
Mipango na vitega Uchumi -Juma Ali Shamhuna.
Kilimo,Mifugo na Maliasili -Adam Mwakanjuki.
Habari,Utamaduni na Vijana -Issa Mohammed.
waziri wa Ujenzi,Ardhi,mazingira na Umeme -Kamali Basha Pandu.
waziri wa Afya - Said Bakari Jecha.
Sheria na Katiba - Idi Pandu Hassan.
na Waziri wa Serikali za mitaa na Vikosi vya serikali ya Zanzibar(askari wa KMKM,JKU na Magereza) - Ali Haji Ali.
--kuna mawaziri wengi wa zamani ambao wameachwa,kama bi Rufea Juma Mbarouk aliyekuwa waziri wa mawasiliano;bi Msimu Abdurahmani aliyekuwa waziri wa wanawake na watoto na bwana Mohammed Shoka aliyekuwa waziri wa Afya;na Sepetu Isaack(Mipango).
Inaoyesha kuwa kutakuwa na mabadiliko makubwa ya kisiasa nchini hasa kwa vile wapemba wengi wameachwa katika nafasi za juu serikalini na wengine wakiendelea kuhama nchi kwa vitisho vya mitaani na pia watu wenye asili ya kiarabu na ngazija kutishiwa kwa vile wengi ni wafuasi wa chama cha CUF.
WAKATI HUO HUO,uchaguzi wa Tanzania uliofanyika oktoba 29,umeleta mzozano mkubwa Tanzania bara baada ya Kura nyingi kuibiwa na watu kukosa kupiga kura,vyama vya siasa hasa NCCR,CUF CHADEMA na UDP vimepeleka malalamiko yao mahkamani ili kubadhilisha uchaguzi huo na kuunda serikali ya mpito itakayo ongozwa na jaji mkuu wa Tanzania na Baadaye kuitisha uchaguzi mpya.haijulikani kama madai yao yata kubalika mahkamani;lakini baadhi ya wachunguzi wa kimataifa wanaunga mkono hatua hiyo ya vyama.Kwa baadhi ya sehemu ambazo uchaguzi ulifanikiwa kufanywa vizuri CCM inaongoza kwa viti na kura nyingi za Mgombea wao bwana Mkapa.CCM inashutmiwa kufanya njama za kuiba kura kwa vile gari moja ilikamatwa kura nyingi ambazo tayari zilikuwa zimeandikwa kuunga mkono wagombea wa CCM. Kwa hali hiyo ya Kisiasa ambayo haitabiriki mwisho itakuwa vipi,bidhaa mbali mbali zimeendelea kupanda na baadhi ya wafanyabiashara wanaogopa kuleta biashara.
The letter from whom knows Zanzibar condition well.29.Oct.'95
E-mail from Tanzanian overseas.30.Oct.'95
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