CCM retains two seats, regains one in by-elections
Longido/Songea/Singida. CCM won all three seats that were up for grabs in Saturday’s parliamentary by-elections in Songea Urban, Singida North and Longido constituencies.
The ruling party retained the Songea Urban and Singida North seats and and won back Longido from the opposition.
The Songea Urban seat fell vacant following the death of area MP Leonidas Gama, while Singida North residents found themselves without a representative after Mr Lazaro Nyalandu defected to Chadema. Voters in Longido went to the polls again on Saturday after Mr Onesmo ole Nangole, who won in 2015 through Chadema, was unseated by the High Court last year.
Announcing the Singida North results, Singida District Executive Director Rashid Mandao said the CCM candidate, Mr Justin Monko, emerged the winner after garnering 20,857 votes out of the 22,298 valid votes cast, which was equivalent to 93.5 per cent of the vote. The Civil United Front (CUF) candidate, Dalphine Mlewa, came second with 974 votes, or 4.4 per cent of the total votes cast.
According to Mr Mandao, a total of 91,518 voters were registered, but only 22,857 appeared to cast their votes, whereby 70 per cent of the registered voters did not vote.
The Singida DED named the other candidates as Aloyce Nduguta (Tadea), who received 265 votes (1.2 per cent); Omari Sombi (AFP; received 116 votes, equivalent to 0.5 per cent) and Rev John Labisu (CCK; 86 votes, equivalent to 0.04 per cent).
Mr Mandao said the by-election was conducted peacefully, transparently and in compliance with laid-down rules, regulations and procedures.
Regarding the Longido constituency, the MP-elect, Dr Steven Kiruswa, said his priority as the next member of the union Parliament was to ensure that the Education Fund helped residents of the constituency.
Speaking to reporters yesterday, Dr Kiruswa said his by-election win was victory for all the people of Longido. The new MP garnered 41,258 votes, which is equivalent to 99.1 per cent of the total valid votes cast and counted.
The losing candidates in the by-election congratulated Dr Kiruswa on his victory and promised to cooperate with him and help him to effectively carry out the promises he made to his constituents during the campaign.
CCK party candidate Francis Ringo said Longido constituency had a number of challenges in social and economic infrastructure, including poor roads, water supply, health and education services, all of which needed to be addressed urgently.
