Votes were being counted on Monday in what is expected to be Tanzania’s tightest election race ever, with the governing party facing the first major challenge to its dominance in decades.
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Tanzanians began voting Sunday for a successor to President Jakaya Kikwete as fears grow that the outcome of the closest election in a half-century in Africa’s third-biggest gold producer may trigger unrest.
Lowassa, who defected from CCM in July after the party spurned him as a possible leadership candidate, said he would only concede defeat if the vote was free and fair.
A few officials and analysts have voiced particular concern about rising tensions in the semi-autonomous archipelago of Zanzibar, where the opposition had accused the government of intimidation ahead of the polls.
The campaigning has exposed public frustration with the pace of change in an East African nation endowed with gas and mineral deposits but lagging other regional economies.
Voting has started in Tanzania’s general elections in which the ruling party faces a strong challenge from a united opposition.
More than 63,000 polling stations opened at 7.00 a.m. local time (0400GMT) after two months of campaigning that saw both Magufuli and Lowassa pledge to tackle rampant corruption and improve the country’s crumbling infrastructure.
There has been no announcement from the Zanzibar Electoral Commission and the figures given by Seif could not be verified, but the declaration is likely to raise tensions on the islands.
“We expect to win by majority this time, and if that dream comes true we will offer our people the best social services”, said Omar Ali Shehe, the Civic United Front’s director of elections. But I urge Shein, to be a gentleman so as not to put the country into chaos, ” Sharif Hamad said.
British High Commissioner Dianna Melrose says she is generally impressed with the polls. “We witnessed thousands of people with high enthusiasm turning out and reporting at polling stations”, Melrose said.
The elections are being held amid a climate of uncertainty, with many afraid of a repeat of the violence that plagued the first-round legislative elections in August, when two people were killed.
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There are concerns that a few opposition groups may be training and arming their own militias, said Jeffrey Smith, director of Africa policy for the Washington D.C.-based group Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights. The party previously said 40 had been detained. Daniel Scioli, the governor of the Buenos Aires province and a former vice president, is the chosen successor to Fernandez, who is the most influential politician in Argentina, with an approval rating of around 50 percent.
