1990: Election cycle starts on a low key in voter registration
Chief Adam Sapi Mkwawa was Electoral Commission chairman during the 1990 elections. He doubled as Speaker of the National Assembly. Photo | file
Dar es Salaam. The 1990 polls were the seventh in post-independence Tanzania. The first election was conducted on November 1, 1962 about a year after Tanganyika got its independence from the British colonialists. The election was meant to elect the President of Tanganyika that became a republic a month later.
The Members of Parliament, who had been elected in the August 30, 1960 Legislative Council elections continued in their positions after independence for five more years till the 1965 General Election.
The 1990 election process started in earnest on Thursday March 22 when the Electoral Commission announced the beginning of the voter registration. The registration went on for one month from July, 16 to August 24, 1990.
On August 16 the national congress of CCM was convened to nominate the presidential candidate. The Zanzibar presidential candidate was nominated by CCM’s National Executive Committee (NEC).
The Electoral Commission met under the chairmanship of Chief Adam Sapi Mkwawa, who doubled as Speaker of Parliament, to discuss issues of demarcations of constituencies. That year at least 11 parliamentary districts were divided into two constituencies each. The districts were Arumeru, Njombe, Kiteto, Mpanda, Kigoma Rural, Kilosa, Geita, Kinondoni, Tarime and Lushoto. This increased the number of constituencies from 169 to 180. Among the 180 constituencies, Zanzibar continued to have 50 parliamentary constituencies.
Director of Elections Mahamoud Mwindadi, who doubled as Clerk of Parliament, said the pre-election cycle had started in 1989 with procurement of voting materials such as indelible ink and printing of electoral forms. Election seminars started on March 8, 1990. On Monday May 28, 1990 NEC issued election guidelines that would guide coordinators of district Party meetings that were crucial in the nominations of parliamentary candidates. NEC also said the Party would continue with its tradition of issuing election manifesto.
That decision rescinded an earlier NEC decision taken on May 1989, which directed Party officials to use CCM’s two key documents promulgated in 1987 as guiding documents for candidates during election campaigns. The two documents were Programu ya Chama ya mwaka 1987 hadi 2002 (Party Programme of 1987-2002) and an accompanying statement to the Party Programme, titled Maelekezo ya Chama Kuhusu Maendeleo ya Uchumi na Jamii Katika Kipindi cha 1987-1992, (Party Directives on the Country’s Socio-economic Development, 1987-1992).
The Programme was a follow up review of the implementation of the Arusha Declaration as further expanded by Mwongozo wa 1981 (Party Guidelines of 1981) and the CCM Constitution of 1982.
The Party Programme, therefore, was aimed at providing guidelines for achieving better and higher standards of living of the people and improvement of the national economy for the 15 years from 1987 to 2002. The U-turn to the election manifesto was aimed at simplifying the explanation of the Party policies to the people by the candidates. It was deemed that the content of the Programme and the accompanying document was such that it would be difficult for candidates to make simple explanations of Party policies to the people.
On his May Day address to the nation at a rally at Kichakapumu Village, Micheweni Pemba, President Ali Hassan Mwinyi urged the people to register to vote.
“The days for people to be told who should be their ruler are over. The people must elect their leaders in a democratic process,” President Mwinyi noted.
On Monday, June 11, the Electoral Commission announced that elections would take place on October 28, October 28. The Commission said election campaigns would start on October 7 and end on October 27.
The nomination process was also supposed to start on July 31. Appeals against candidates would be submitted between July 31 and August 1.
President Mwinyi was one of the first people to register on July 16 at the Kivukoni ward in Dar es Salaam.
CCM chairperson Mwalimu Julius Nyerere registered to vote on Thursday July 19 at Mikoroshoni CCM Branch, Msasani Ward in Dar es Salaam.
Prime Minister Joseph Warioba, registered at his ancestral village of Nyamuswa in Bunda District.
While Union presidential and parliamentary elections were slated for October 28, elections for Zanzibar President and members of the House of Representatives were scheduled to take place on October 21.
Despite efforts by leaders to lead by examples the turn out for registration was low especially in the first two weeks and was mostly of men.
A total of 7,173,392 people registered to vote equivalent to 77.73 per cent of the target.
6,954,218 registered in Tanzania Mainland (77.88 per cent of the target) and 219,174 registered in Zanzibar (73.18 per cent of the target). In Zanzibar 173,738 people registered in Unguja (93.76 per cent of the target) and 45,436 people registered in Pemba (39.79 per cent of the target).
Regions that led in voter registration were Mwanza (557,341), Shinyanga (535,598), Mbeya (478,252), Dar es Salaam (470,076), Dodoma (428,906), Iringa (404,090), Arusha 396,278), Tanga (387,450), Morogoro (384,595), Kagera (383,053), Kilimanjaro (316,028), Mtwara (309,518) and Mara (307,025).
