Chadema takes early lead as Arusha votes
Voters check out their names at a polling station before casting their ballots in a civic by-election in Arusha yesterday
What you need to know:
As the voting got underway, it was clear many voters had opted to stay at home.
Arusha. Uneasy calm, low turnout and tight security yesterday marked the vote in the by-election here, even as Chadema seemed poised to carry the day in all the four wards.
As the voting got underway, it was clear many voters had opted to stay at home. Arusha residents have fresh memories of the deadly grenade attack that rocked a Chadema campaign rally on June 16, the eve of a scheduled by-election that had to be postponed following the senseless attack.
The grenade incident claimed four lives while scores of others escaped with injuries, when a yet to be identified thug hurled a grenade into the crowd minutes at 6pm, just as the campaign was coming to an end.
Yesterday, the 136 polling stations of Elerai, Kaloleni, Kimandolu and Themi wards were closed at exactly 4pm after the supervisors were satisfied no more voters were forthcoming. The exercise had started at 7am.
The results of all the 27 polling stations in Kaloleni Ward were still being tallied by 7pm last evening, with Chadema candidate Emmanuel Kessy far ahead of his opponents Emmanuel Thomas Miliari (CCM), Daruwesh Abbas Mkindi (CUF) and Simon Paul Ngilisho of Demokrasia Makini.
While Chadema celebrated in Kaloleni – the scene of the grenade attack which led to the postponement of the by-election – reports from Elerai Ward, northwest of Arusha, also showed the opposition party was also leading.
The Citizen team on site at 6.30pm was told that until then Chadema candidate Jeremiah Mpinga had garnered 1,083 votes against CCM’s Emmanuel Laizer’s (802) and John Bayo of CUF trailing with 127 votes.
The tallying was still in progress at Elerai and two other wards, Kimandolu and Themi, as we went to press. Kimandolu, along Moshi Road, is one area where the ruling party had been tipped to win, according to political observers here.
Informed sources said the turn-out during the voting there was low and that by 1pm, some polling stations, with a combined number of 450 registered voters, had only 80 that had shown up.
News of a likely victory by Chadema had also been corroborated by data from each station, compiled or reported by some local radio stations in Arusha, which ran live coverage of the polling.
However, in some areas, information on the tallied figures were hard to obtain as the poll officials maintained they wouldn’t release the results until all figures were compiled and verified.
These included the Themi and Elerai wards. The formal counting continued although some Chadema and other parties’ agents had figures collected from the polling stations. Most of the figures indicated Chadema was on the victory path.
Chadema won the four wards during the 2010 General Election but they fell vacant after stripping its councillors of party membership in mid-2011.
No major incidents were reported by late afternoon but some officials of Chadema, which was battling neck-and-neck with the ruling CCM for the four wards, had complained that the police impounded some of their vehicles.
Arusha City director Sipora Liana told The Citizen earlier in the day that some voters had discovered that their names were missing from the registers but, she added, the problems would be sorted out by the relevant officials at the polling stations.
People who couldn’t cast their vote included those without eligible voter cards, IDs or those who produced only photocopies of the required documents, she said.
There were a total of 416 election supervisors, serving under 136 invigilators and eight auxiliary supervisors in the by-election.
And then there were 60,123 eligible voters in the four wards with Elerai having 23,797 and 55 polling centres, Kimandolu (17,294) and 39 polling stations while Kaloleni had 27 voting centres and 12,636 voting centres. Themi had 6,396 voters and 15 centres.
According to City Director Liana, 12 contestants representing six political parties were vying for the four councillors’ seats with CCM, Chadema and Civic United Front (CUF) fielding a candidate in every ward.
Some observers said the voter turnout was low because of voter fatigue thanks to the two postponements as well as security concern, given that violence has increasingly become the hallmark of competitive politics in Arusha.
