EDITORIAL: Find lasting solution to by-election woes
What you need to know:
- Even so early in the by-election preparation stages, controversies have surfaced – and continue to surface – involving officials of different electoral authorities, different government authorities, and different political parties, as well as prospective election candidates and other stakeholders, including activists for human freedoms and rights.
For the umpteenth time, Tanzania is readying for yet another by-election. Slated for August 12 this year, the by-election is to fill the Buyungu parliamentary seat left vacant by the death of the immediate-past legislator, and 77 Ward seats left vacant by various councillors for assorted reasons.
Even so early in the by-election preparation stages, controversies have surfaced – and continue to surface – involving officials of different electoral authorities, different government authorities, and different political parties, as well as prospective election candidates and other stakeholders, including activists for human freedoms and rights.
Among the controversies are, for example, the authorities declaring 12 ward candidates from the veteran ruling Party of the Revolution (CCM) as having won the election unopposed – while disqualifying some candidates from major opposition parties from contesting the election!
Also, some candidates and cadres of different opposition parties have been denied candidacy application forms, while others have been detained under different pretexts – thus forcing others go into hiding for fear of also being detained.
There are a myriad controversies, details of which can be gleaned from our sister-paper Mwananchi of July 16, 2018.
But the controversies – some of which are calculated for narrower, selfish political ends – could mar and otherwise prejudice the envisaged by-election. Calls for justice, fairness and sanity to prevail in by-elections are not new; but, they never really worked. In that regard, we venture to call upon the government to seriously consider alternatives to by-elections.
For example, instead of by-elections, the political party that loses a sitting legislator should nominate a replacement from its ranks – and life must go on until the next general elections. Better still, the second-placed ‘winner’ in the last general election should – regardless of his/her political party affiliation –automatically ascend to the vacant electoral seat.
