Parties given two-day ultimatum to complete nomination of candidates

Dar es Salaam. The National Electoral Commission (NEC) has issued a two-day ultimatum to political parties in the country to complete nominations for the parliamentary seats and councillorship to across the country.

NEC says purpose was to this will enable election supervisors to provide political parties’ legitimate candidates with nomination forms following the recent wave of bogus candidates collecting forms without approval.

A letter signed by the NEC director of Elections, Dr Wilson Charles to Chadema secretary general John Mnyika with Reference Number EA.75/162/01A/361 dated August 20, 2020 says its instructions came after a thorough follow up on the process.

 “Our follow up found out that political parties were not well organized leading to unauthorized people collecting  nomination forms for parliamentary seats and councillorship without the authority of respective political parties,” he said.

Dr Wilson said as a result legal candidates from various political parties were denied with the documents, naming affected constituencies as Kibamba, Mbagala, Kigamboni in Dar es Salaam Region and Kilombero in Morogoro Region.
 “This instruction targets constituencies and wards with their challenges and incidents that have been reported before the commission. This should be given the highest priorities,” reads the letter in part.

Chadema and ACT-Wazalendo recently wrote a letter to the country’s electoral body saying some bogus candidates had collected nomination forms in some wards and constituencies instead of legitimate approved candidates.