Membe: What Tanzania needs for elections to be truly free, fair

Dar es Salaam. ‘Sacked’ CCM party member Bernard Membe has joined the bandwagon of politicians calling for an independent electoral commission if the October general elections this year are to be free, fair and credible.

Mr Membe - who served as Foreign Affairs minister in the President Jakaya Kikwete government - wrote on his twitter handle:

“I said it in the Ethics Committee - and let me say it again. The prevailing political climate calls for an electoral commission which is independent, representative and transparent at both the national and district level [sic]. I, therefore, strongly support all the voices to that effect.”

Mr Membe - who the CCM’s Central Committee announced last month that he was expelled from the party’s membership over “disciplinary” issues - confirmed to The Citizen later in the day that the tweet was indeed his.

With his call for an independent electoral commission, he joins a train of major opposition political parties that have already been raising voices over the issue ahead of the October 2020 elections.

On Monday, Chadema chairman Freeman Mbowe said it would be “madness” to go to the polls in October under the current electoral system - and expect free and fair elections.

He said without substantive reforms of the country’s electoral system - including ensuring palpable independence of the National Electoral Commission (NEC) - elections may bring the country into “unnecessary chaos and violence.”

The newly-elected ACT-Wazalendo national chairman, Seif Sharif Hamad, said on Tuesday that pushing for a truly independent electoral body was a key resolution reached at the party’s just-ended general conference.

Mr Membe told The Citizen yesterday that those who went to court to oppose the constitutionality of making District Executive Directors (DEDs) returning officers were right.

“Allowing DEDs to work as returning officers is as good as telling your son-in-law to be returning officer in the election which you [their father-in-law] are a participant,” he said.

He said those claiming that DEDs have worked as returning officers in the past were ignorant of the fact that, in the current political system, a DED will lose his/her job when an opposition candidate wins in their election districts.

On May 10, 2019, the High Court of Tanzania nullified Articles 7 and 7(A) of the National Elections Act of 2010 (Cap 343) which allowed DEDs to be the electoral commission’s returning officers.

The constitutional case was filed in 2018 by Bob Chacha Wangwe challenging the constitutionality of the said articles.

Mr Wangwe told the High Court that the Act is in contradiction with Sections 21 (1), 21 (2) and 26 (1) of the Constitution of the United Republic of Tanzania.

He argued that DEDs are appointed by the President of the United Republic of Tanzania, who is also chairman of the ruling political party.

However, the government filed a appeal against the judgment on July 30, 2019 presenting 11 reasons before a team of five judges including Judge Augustine Mwarija, Judge Stella Mugasha, Judge Richard Mziray, Judge Rehema Mkuye and Judge Jacobs Mwambegele.

The Court of Appeal then revoked the ruling by the High Court of Tanzania which prohibited DEDs from being election returning officers on behalf of the NEC.

However, one of the defence lawyers, Mr Jebra Kambole, said he was not satisfied with the Court of Appeal’s judgment and his team was contemplating further legal action.