Lowassa party questions NEC ballot software

Dar es Salaam. Chadema wants the National Electoral Commission to come clean on the planned deployment of a new software for tallying votes in the presidential election on October 25, saying the confidence of all the political parties in the system was critical for the credibility of the outcome.

Chadema, whose candidate, Mr Edward Lowassa, is being backed for the presidency in a coalition of three other parties, also asked NEC to release the revised national voter register.

Addressing a press conference yesterday in Dar es Salaam, Chadema Deputy Secretary-General (Mainland) John Mnyika said they were taken by surprise by a news report revealing that the polls body was testing a new software that it planned to use in this year’s elections.

Mr John Mnyika said his party and the opposition coalition Ukawa have smelt a rat over the new software should NEC not come out clean over the intention to change the way the presidential results would be announced in this year’s election.

“NEC should form a team involving both NEC and political stakeholders so that they can participate in verifying the new sogtware that will be used in releasing election results,” he said.

He added: “We want (NEC chairman Damian) Lubuva to show us the software so that our IT (Information Technology) experts could identify the kind of system it is and how safe it would be from interference.”

The Citizen reported last week how NEC was planning to deploy the use of new technology in this year’s elections, with the procurement of the new software among the corner stones of its plan to make the elections free and fair. The Citizen then reported that NEC would use the unidentified software to receive and tally the presidential vote results.

According to NEC, the system, while it’s an improvement of the old way of doing things, would ensure realtime relay of the results as they trickled in from the far flung regions and also enable NEC to announce the final results quickly. Mr Lubuva and NEC Director of Elections Kailima Ramadhani both confirmed the agency was testing the software but did not want to discuss finer details such as where it was bought.

Mr Ramadhani said the new technology would enable them to finish the work of releasing the presidential results within two days instead of seven that are provided for in law. He assured the public that they will be open and transparent in its use. Mr Lubuva also repeated the same assurance in an interview with The Citizen, saying the electiom stakeholders will be invited to take a look once the test-run was finally completed.

NEC which has come under scrutiny following claims of favouring the ruling party, CCM, over the years, is working to turn the tide and win over the pessimists, with repeated messaging of its commitment to run a free, fair and credible election this year. Part of the promised changes is for the posting of presidential vote results outside each polling centre. The results were in the past only announced by electoral officials at the district level.

NEC has also said it will not allow the transportation of ballot boxes from the more than 72,000 polling stations to central locations on the material election day, with Mr Lubuva pleading with voters to turn out in large numbers to vote for their preferred candidates knowing that their collective will will be respected. He said NEC will not favour any political party.

The use of the new technology in this year’s election started with the biometric voter registration in which some 23.7 million people have registered as voters. The BVR cards contain security features that are specific to each of the holders even though the voting will still be manual. NEC did not procure the electronic voter identification kits (Evids) with the BVR system that would have allowed for electronic voting as in the last Nigerian General Election.

The malfunctioning of the electronic voter tallying during neighbouring Kenya’s General Election in 2013 was being touted as a case study to avoid a similar saga in the Tanzanian election. It was however, still not known how different the NEC fronted software may be from the Kenyan tallying electronic system.

During yesterday’s press conference, Mr Mnyika urged NEC to release the national voter register, lamenting that unlike in the past, NEC has delayed in giving it out this time. However, Mr Lubuva yesterday said the register will be released in a few days time.

“This time around, NEC is silent, we would like to hear from NEC why they are not involving political parties as before because there are claims of behind the scene activities to scurry favour with CCM,” he said.

Mr Mnyika ALSO ACCUSED President Jakaya Kikwete and Ministers of continuing using government resources in the ongoing election campaign activities. He said ministers were planning events that are connected to election campaigns so that CCM could gain political mileage out of it.