Minister intervenes in local government elections controversy

Dodoma. The minister of State in the President’s Office (Regional Administration and Local Governments), Mr Suleiman Jafo, has ordered reinstatement of disgruntled aspirants, who were disqualified from contesting various positions in the forthcoming civic elections.
The minister directed appeal committees to make a thorough review of the nomination process and come up with fair decisions for all aspirants. Speaking in Dodoma yesterday, Mr Jafo said all candidates, who have been disqualified without sound reasons should be reinstated, pending the committees rulings. The civic polls will be held on November 24.
This comes after opposition parties continued to cry foul in the entire electoral process.
Opposition parties claim that some of the returning officers have been shutting their offices, which deny some of their candidates to return nomination forms in favour of the ruling party.
In different occasions, opposition parties claim that some of the returning officers have been giving reason, which are not in elections regulations to disqualify their candidates, which has so far led to several candidates from the CCM to win unopposed.
Some of the reasons that have led to disqualification of the opposition candidates, according to the parties, include  lack of physical addresses and misspelling their names.
The situation has been reported in Kilimanjaro, Dar es Salaam, Simiyu, Kagera, Mbeya, Kigoma, Lindi Mara, Mwanza, Katavi  and Arusha regions.
In Kilimanjaro, the NCCR-Mageuzi chairman, Mr James Mbatia, told The Citizen that no candidate from his party had qualified in his Vunjo constituency.
In Hai constituency, the returning officer, Mr Juma Kasonga, said 12 candidates from the ruling party have no opposing candidates out of 62 villages as well as 110 streets out of 294.
In Mara Region, Chadema regional secretary Heche Chacha said some of their candidates were disqualified for spelling errors.
He said others were disqualified, including the outgoing chairpersons, on the ground that they are not citizens of Tanzania.
In Arusha Region, Chadema said their candidates in 390 villages, 154 streets and 1,505 suburbs had been disqualified. “This is not an election but it is violence because some of our candidates were attacked in the night to their residents and their forms were taken away by people believed to be followers of the ruling party,” he said
“Unfortunately, the ruling party candidates have been helped by the returning officers to fill out the forms.” During its party meeting on Monday, Chadema reported that its candidates in Simiyu region, Ngara district, Ubungo, Mbeya urban and Busokelo have been disqualified without any reason from returning officers.