TANZANIAN PRESIDENT Jakaya Kikwete is expected to win a second term in office as counting of votes from Sunday’s general election begins.
According to Lewis Makame, the country’s national electoral commissioner, President Kikwete of the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi party won the most votes in nine of the 14 constituencies counted so far. However, the exact share of votes across the east African nations’ 239 constituencies will not be known until the end of the week, he said.
Mr Kikwete, a former economist, pledged to fight poverty and maintain the economic policies that have seen the economy grow by more than 5 per cent since he took office. However, frustration over levels of corruption in east Africa’s largest nation has bolstered support for anti-graft campaigner Dr Wilbrod Slaa of the opposition Chadema party.
Tanzania was ranked 116 out of 178 countries this year in an annual corruption index compiled by watchdog Transparency International, down from 88 when Mr Kikwete first came to power in 2005.
Despite reports that some voters were not registered at polling stations, election observers expressed satisfaction with the manner in which the poll was held.
Paul East, head of the Commonwealth observer team, said voting was “peaceful, orderly and well organised. We have also witnessed counting which is being done according to the regulations . . . Despite a few reported glitches . . . the elections were generally smooth and held in an atmosphere of peace and tranquillity,” said the state-owned Daily News newspaper.
On the semi-autonomous island of Zanzibar, voting also passed off peacefully, despite incidents of violence in the past. A powersharing agreement was put in place earlier this year, which will give government positions to the party that comes second.
Meanwhile in west Africa, voting also went smoothly in the Ivory Coast as people took part in an election that has been postponed six times since 2005.
The country has been divided since 2002 when rebels from the largely Muslim north took up arms against the government in an attempted coup against President Laurent Gbagbo.
Mr Gbagbo (60) stood again in this year’s election against 13 other candidates.
The world’s biggest cocoa producer showed “political maturity and determination to put an end to the crisis”, Choi Young-jin, the United Nations’ special representative to the country told reporters.