Blitz Bureau
NEW DELHI: President Samia Suluhu Hassan has been declared the winner of Tanzania’s presidential election, securing another term amid days of unrest across the country. Samia won 98 per cent of the votes in October 29 poll, the electoral commission said. In her victory speech on November 1, she said the election was “free and democratic”, accusing protesters of being “unpatriotic”.
Opposition parties rejected the results, calling the vote a mockery of the democratic process as Samia’s main challengers had been either imprisoned or barred from running.
International observers have expressed concern over the lack of transparency and widespread turmoil that has reportedly left hundreds of people dead and injured, says BBC. The nationwide internet shutdown is making it difficult to verify the death toll. The government has sought to play down the scale of the violence – and authorities have extended a curfew in a bid to quell the unrest.
The opposition in Zanzibar said there had been “massive fraud”, the AP news agency reported. Mwinyi’s swearing-in ceremony is under way at Amaan Complex stadium in Zanzibar.
On October 31, demonstrators in Dar es Salaam and other cities took to the streets, tearing down Samia’s posters and attacking police and polling stations despite warnings from the army chief to end the unrest.
The demonstrations are mostly led by young protesters, who have denounced the election as unfair. They accuse the government of undermining democracy by suppressing the main opposition leaders – one is in jail and another was excluded on technical grounds.
In a statement, the UN chief Antonio Guterres said he was “deeply concerned” about the situation in Tanzania, “including reports of deaths and injuries during the demonstrations”. He urged all parties involved to “prevent further escalation”. The UK, Canada and Norway have expressed similar concerns, citing “credible reports of a large number of fatalities and significant injuries, as a result of the security response to protests”.
