CUF said the attack on its supporters was meant to “intimidate the opposition”.
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The Civic United Front, another opposition party, said police had fired tear gas at a crowd of its supporters in Tanzania’s Indian Ocean island of Zanzibar. Police Commissioner Paul Chagonja said a few arrests were made due to “violations of electoral procedures” at a Chadema tallying centre.
The ruling CCM party, which has said it was on track to win the presidency and retain its big majority in parliament based on initial results, also said the election was fair.
Lowassa defected from the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi party earlier this year after it refused to make him its presidential candidate.
Election workers prepare to count ballots after presidential and general elections using an electric lamp to light the space at a polling station in Dar es Salaam on October 25, 2015.
But voting was broadly peaceful across the vast East African nation of 47 million people, with a high turnout in many urban areas leading to delays.
Results were expected to start trickling in on Monday, and the electoral commission has said it plans to announce the victor within three days of polls closing.
The opposition has often complained about abuses in past votes, but this challenge carries more weight because Chadema and other major opposition parties have united in a coalition for the first time, fielding a single presidential candidate.
They lost to candidates representing an opposition alliance of four parties including Chadema, the main opposition party.
Ivory Coast voted in a presidential election Sunday expected to return incumbent Alassane Ouattara to power amid hopes of cementing peace after years of violence and upheaval.
British High Commissioner Dianna Melrose says she is generally impressed with the polls.
“I went to the polling station very early in the morning ready to cast my vote”, Emanuel Motta, a voter from Arusha in northern Tanzania, told Anadolu Agency. “However, we are concerned with a few cases where voting materials were delayed. This left many people frustrated”.
The ruling party is facing its toughest test yet from opposition rivals led by former Prime Minister Edward Lowassa.
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Voters are also casting ballots in parliamentary and local polls on Sunday, including on the semi-autonomous archipelago of Zanzibar, which is also holding presidential elections. “There’s clear popular enthusiasm for something different than the same old, same old CCM again”, said J. Peter Pham, director of the Africa Center at the Atlantic Council, a think tank in Washington, D.C. “It’s hard to run an anti-corruption campaign when he was forced to resign in 2008 under the shadow of financial impropriety”.
