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Tanzania, Zanzibar

Zanzibar election nullified as Magufuli easily wins Tanzanian presidency

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Though it was the most competitive presidential election in the history of democratic Tanzania, the ruling party candidate, public works minister John Magufuli easily won the election last Sunday in results announced earlier today by Tanzania’s elections commission.zanzibar
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Magufuli emerged as a dark-horse candidate of the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM, Party of the Revolution)  after a contentious fight left former prime minister Edward Lowassa and foreign minister Bernard Membe (the favorite of outgoing president Jakaya Kikwete) both precluded from contention.

Earlier this summer, the spurned Lowassa decided instead to depart for the opposition camp, becoming the presidential challenger for a coalition that includes Chama Cha Demokrasia na Maendeleo (popularly known simply as Chadema), a liberal opposition party formed in 1992.

Tanzania’s electoral commission announced that Magufuli won 58.46% of the vote while Lowassa won just 39.97%. The CCF is also expected to win a majority of the 357 seats in Tanzania’s Bunge, the unicameral parliament.

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RELATED: Genuinely competitive election boosts Tanzanian democracy

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Lowassa, who served as Kikwete’s prime minister from 2005 to 2008, left office in scandal and mired under allegations of corruption. While his political power and support base made him the most potent possible challenger for Chadema, it also tarred the previously anti-corruption opposition party. No longer would Chadema necessarily be the party of change nor would it be the party of transparency and good government, and its 2010 presidential candidate Wilbrod Slaa left the party and endorsed Magufuli.

Works minister John Magufuli performed push-ups on the campaign trail to show his fitness for office. (Facebook)

Magufuli, age 55, swatted away criticisms of old age and ill health, at one point doing push-ups on the campaign trail to demonstrate his vigor. The showdown between him and Lowassa was among the most contested election campaigns in the country’s history, with both candidates vying for an electorate that’s one of the world’s youngest — 50% of the population is between the ages of 18 and 32.

But as easily as the national elections seem to have gone throughout the Tanzanian mainland, the islands of largely autonomous Zanzibar have been far more problematic.  Continue reading Zanzibar election nullified as Magufuli easily wins Tanzanian presidency →

Tanzania

Genuinely competitive election boosts Tanzanian democracy

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Edward Lowassa, a former prime minister, hopes now to lead the Chadema opposition party to power in Tanzania. (Facebook)
Edward Lowassa, a former prime minister, hopes now to lead the Chadema opposition party to power in Tanzania. (Facebook)

It’s not every day that hopes for reform and good government lie more with reelecting the dominant party that’s held power since 1977 than with opting for the opposition.tanzania

But increasingly, that seems to be the case in Tanzania, where the October 25 general election pits John Magufuli, the standard-bearer of the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM, Party of the Revolution) against Edward Lowassa, one of the CCM’s former presidential hopefuls and a disgraced former prime minister. Lowassa is running as the candidate of the Ukawa opposition front that includes Chama Cha Demokrasia na Maendeleo (popularly known simply as Chadema), a liberal opposition party formed in 1992, and Chama Cha Wananchi (CUF, Civic United Front), the Zanzibar-based opposition party.

Changing places?

Though Lowassa is the wilier politician, the CCM is still favored to hold onto power after Sunday’s elections. Since multi-party politics were introduced in 1992, the CCM has had little trouble maintaining its lock on the Tanzanian government. On the mainland, at least, the CCM (and before 1977, its predecessor, the Tanganyika African National Union) has been virtually interchangeable with government.

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But Lowassa’s popularity as a former CCM official, the desire for change among the country’s powerful youth, and growing opposition strength in Zanzibar have made this year’s elections particularly unpredictable.

The current contest between Lowassa and Magufuli has its roots in the tussle earlier this year to determine the CCM’s successor. Jakaya Kikwete, Tanzania’s fourth post-independence president, is term-limited and, while he’ll continue to lead the CCM until 2018, he will leave the presidency after a decade in office, generally maintaining Tanzania’s stable path to greater development. Continue reading Genuinely competitive election boosts Tanzanian democracy →