ZANZIBAR POLL RE RUN, A JOKE TO TRUE DEMOCRACY - ALLY SALEH

Ally Saleh

2 hrs · 

article in Sunday Citizen 27 March 2016

ZANZIBAR POLL RE RUN, A JOKE TO TRUE DEMOCRACY

By Ally Saleh

Zanzibar held its poll re= run election was held last sunday to compensate on the one annulled by the Chairperson of Zanzibar Electoral Commission Jecha Salum Jecha for a number of reasons chief being "irregularities".

However, the main opposition party C UF rejected the poll re run believing it was a mere ploy to support candidate Dr. Ali Muhammed Shein.

So both the Union and the Zanzibar governments stood to their guns to oversee the re=run and issued statements to make it know that the exercise would be free and fair, strange as it sounds.

They adamantly said the re run would go ahead with or without local or international observers and least concerned by non participation of CUF, which continues to recognise the October 25 elections. 

And so, not only guns but also tanks artillery and men were deployed in a scale never known in Zanzibar. These painted the two isles with images one would see in militarised state.

While ZEC took four days without completing the tallying and announcement of presidential results in the October elections this time it took less than 24 hours.

In last years poll, 31 constituencies out of 54 had their results announced for the presidential race. So even when Judge Abdulhakim Ameir wanted to forge ahead with results he was taken away and Jecha through government owned ZBC television station announced the cancellation of the elections

It was really interesting to watch ZEC work in situation of almost solitude but of resistance and where no campaign was allowed and no Candidate was allowed quit. At the end only fewer presidential candidates retained their names.

The small parties could hardly maintain handful legislators and speak not of local councillorship and won none at all.

In the October elections CUF candidate managed around 208,000 votes and Dr Shein around 182,000 but in the re run Dr. Shein is recorded to score 290,000 votes as against 6,000 for Hamad.

As for House of Representative members CUF lost all 18 seats in Pemba and nine in Unguja and CCM took all councillorship seats all over Zanzibar turning the isles yellow and green as CCM violently raped democracy.

Sure, these were strangest results by any standard. In the Malindi constituency where I stood as candidate for Member of Parliament Dr. Shein gained 2,234 votes. but come March 20 re run and he scooped 5,875 votes and meaning 3,539 extra votes in a very safe oppositon constituency.

We cannot comprehend how ZEC had made such collation of votes and publicly committing the body in an exercise that will be discussed for decades all over the world. It has stained Zanzibar for life. The results are also putting the already fragile piece here into disrepute and the flowering government of national unity into rapture.

The results have raised more questions not only on the legality but also on the legitimacy of the results and hence the government to be formed there from.

Opposition CUF have made it known that it would not recognise those purported to have been elected and will not accept or cooperate with the government to be formed and CUF are no strangers to this path.