Lone Chadema MP-elect hints at turning down seat

Dar es Salaam. One of the two opposition Members of Parliament in mainland Tanzania in the just ended General Election has hinted at turning down the opportunity to join Parliament.

Chadema’s lone MP-elect Aida Khenan suggested she would be ready to forego her win in defence of democracy. 

She hinted that she is ready to join her opposition colleagues in any decision that her party will take following the election results which Chadema presidential candidate Tundu Lissu has rejected and termed as “a fraud and travesty.”

“I am not pleased with the outcome of the election that is being released countrywide despite the fact that I have won a parliamentary seat in Nkasi, Rukwa,” she wrote on her twitter handle.

She then added: “Democracy is more important than my win. I am ready to join my colleagues for whatever decision they may opt to take.”

A former special seats MP on Chadema, Ms Khenan was the only Chadema candidate to win a parliamentary seat in the 264-member Parliament after all the party stalwarts lost in the different constituencies.

Ms Khenan defeated CCM’s veteran Ally Kessy after scoring 21,226 votes against his 19,972. She became only the second MP-elect in Mainland Tanzania declared by the National Electoral Commission.

The other MP-elect in mainland is Civic United Front’s Shamsia Aziz Mtamba who won in Mtwara Rural Constituency. The ruling party CCM has swept all the remaining seats in the shock elections whose credibility the opposition is questioning following claims of widespread irregularities, including vote-stuffing.

The National Electoral Commission has not formerly reacted to the opposition’s rejection of the results but on the eve of the election the agency’s Chairman Judge Semistocles Kaijage refuted reports on fake ballots and said the claims were yet to be verified.