Year 2015 is just around the corner. It is expected we shall have a referendum about the new constitution and also the general election.
The foundation of democracy is the right to vote. For this to work, the majority of voting-age people are supposed to exercise that right. When people lose faith in the voting process, it is a dangerous trend, a symptom of great social malaise in any nation. Thus, it is noteworthy that in the recent two parliamentary by-elections (Kalenga and Chalinze constituencies) there was great voter apathy despite prior civic education and high profile campaigns by the high and mighty of the land. For the case of Kalenga, where Mr Godfrey William Mgimwa won the election, the voter turnout was 29,541 (about 41.1 per cent) out of the 71,964 registered voters. In Chalinze, the President’s son, Mr Ridhiwani Kikwete won. The number of registered voters was 92,000 but only 24,422 (about 26.6 per cent) turned out to vote. By all indications, this is very alarming.
Our constitution of 1977 Art.5 states that, any citizen aged 18 years or above has the right to register as a voter and is able to vote in any public election in Tanzania.
Accordingly, voting is not a privilege but a right. But whether that right is exercised as responsibility or not, it is the individual citizens who decide.
Secondary school students are taught civics, which includes why it is important to vote so as to get proper political representation. At the same time, the government and the civil society offer voter education occasionally.
Consequently, it would be expected that as time goes by, more voters should be coming out but the opposite seems to be the case.
I believe this should not be the case considering that we have a fully constituted National Electoral Commission (NEC), which in its website (nec.go.tz) indicates that its role is to supervise and co-ordinate the registration of voters in presidential and parliamentary elections in Tanzania.
The site also notes that NEC has a legal mandate to “provide voter education throughout the country and to co-ordinate and supervise persons who conduct such education.”
NEC usually comes out during election time but after that it is all silence. The time has come for the nation to ask if the voter education offered in Tanzania is working or not, whether it is adequate or not. Why should NEC wait for election time to offer voter education and not do it all the time?
Year 2015 is just around the corner. It is expected we shall have a referendum about the new constitution and also the general election.
Yet, we have not heard NEC preparing the public. Following the last two parliamentary by-elections in March and April 2014, it should be a wakeup call that voter apathy is real.
As a nation, we need to investigate the causes of low voter turnout in the country. Have the masses lost faith in the electoral system? Or is the apathy due to lack of awareness or simply the people giving up that it is impossible to get good leaders in Tanzania? Or could it be the powers that be would like more and more people not to be aware of their right to vote, so that, they can have their way?
Every year we have Tanzanians graduating at various levels of education. Majority of Form Four and Form Six leavers usually reach 18 years while at school. We hear of them graduating, but we never hear NEC going to register them as voters. Something is terribly deliberately wrong with our system.
No wonder in a number of elections, we have heard allegations about operatives for politicians buying voters’ cards from the poor.
If we are not able to get over 50 per cent of the voting age citizens to exercise their right, then we have a lopsided democracy, which is not good for national wellbeing.
