Registration schedule worries rife high high worries rife

Dar es Salaam. Earlier last month the National Electoral Commission (NEC) released a set of schedules for two major events regarding the October General Election.

On May 23 NEC released the timetable which showed that the registration of voters by using the Biometric Voters Registration System which started on February will be completed countrywide by July 18.

Three days later NEC released a timetable which indicates that the general election will be held on October 25. According to the timetable August 21 is the deadline for the nomination of candidates and campaigns will take place from August 22 to October 24, a day before Tanzanians go to the polls.

The release of the timetable at least managed to put to bed some of the concerns expressed by the opposition politicians and Civil Society Organizations (CSOs).

Both the opposition politicians and CSOs had expressed concerns that NEC might be forced to postpone the election until early 2016 due to the slow pace of registration.

The timetable indicates that NEC has allocated 30 days of registration for all regions except Dar es Salaam. The city will have 12 days starting from July 4 to July 16 to register all eligible voters.

Although the release of voters’ registration has managed to answer some questions it has also increased unanswered questions or failed to answer some key questions.

The fact that only 12 days have been set aside for Dar es Salaam to register all eligible voters raised many eyebrows. This is because Dar es Salaam being Tanzania commercial capital has a higher number of eligible voters than other regions across the country.

According to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) data Dar es Salaam has 2.9 million eligible voters out of the 24 million would-be voters across the country.

NEC head of voter education and communication, Ms Ruth Mashamu defended NEC decision to allocate only 12 days for all eligible voters in Dar es Salaam to register their names.

Ms Mashamu played down the concerns, saying NEC has allocated 12 days to Dar es Salaam because all 8000 BVR kits will be used in Dar es Salaam as opposed to other regions.

“We have allocated 30 days in other regions because we are carrying out the exercise concurrently,” she explained.

Rather than answering the question Ms Mashamu’s response creates many questions.

First of all her answer contains factual errors because basing on the timetable NEC wouldn’t be able to use all BVR kits to register voters in Dar es Salaam.

This is because the timetable indicates that registration of voters in Dar es Salaam which will be conducted from 4-16 July will somehow run concurrently with registration of voters in Morogoro, Coast and Tanga which will start from June 18 to July 18.

Furthermore, the exercise will be conducted in Zanzibar for three days starting from 14-16 July.

Due to aforementioned facts NEC wouldn’t be able to use all 8000 BVR kits to register voters in Dar es Salaam for 12 days.

Most likely only 4000 BVR kits will be deployed to register eligible voters in Dar es Salaam. This is because basing on NBS data, Tanga, Morogoro and Coast regions combined have a total of 3.02 million would be voters, 9,7140 more than Dar es Salaam.

According to reports NEC has of to date registered 6 million voters out of 24 would be voters. This means with only 31 days before July 18 deadline, NEC must register 18 million voters.

Basing on BVR kit ability and previous experience this surely will be a paramount task for cash-strapped electoral body.

Mathematically it is possible for 8000 BVR kits to register 18 million voters in the remaining 31 days. A single BVR kit is capable of registering 80 voters per day so 8000 kits can register 640,000 voters per day while 19.84 million voters will be registered by using 8000 BVR kits in 31 days.

However, basing on experience one can be forgiven for doubting NEC’s ability to complete the exercise on time. This is because it has taken NEC more than four months to register 6 million voters albeit due to lack of enough BVR kits.

NEC won’t be able to conduct the exercise consecutively because it will need time to transport BVR kits from one region to another. Furthermore, the BVR kits can encounter hiccups as it was experienced in Nachingwea recently.

A number of would be voters who turned up for registration were left frustrated as the exercise was called off after 12 of the 14 kits sent there failed to work.

Furthermore, the pilot update of the voter register in three wards in Kawe by using BVR earlier this year faced several challenges, including equipment breakdown.

Although NEC chairman Judge Damian Lubuva on various occasions has, rightly so, reiterated that that no eligible voter will be left out, one might be forgiven to doubt whether the election would be held on October 25 as planned.

This is because NEC has been giving empty promises since the beginning of the process to list voters by using BVR.

Despite clear signs that the preparations were grossly inadequate, Judge Lubuva kept on insisting that the referendum for the proposed constitution would have been held on April 30 only to call it off later on.

The decision to reschedule the referendum was due to the slow progress in registration of an estimated 23 million voters using the new biometric technology.

The postponement of the referendum highlights a denial mentality within government and the electoral body despite the evidence of inadequate preparations due to lack of funds.

So it wouldn’t be surprising at all if NEC, as it has previously done, fail to beat the deadline despite the assurance by Ms Mashamu that all eligible voters will be registered as of July18 on time for the October elections.