My dour prognosis of Tanzanian local elections came to pass with flying colours! There is nothing to cheer us up but to concede Tanzanian multiparty democracy was dead on arrival, and the rest, only buffoons, will grant it a certificate of good health.
There was no attempt to conduct an election, but all efforts were directed at safeguarding CCM’s stay in power regardless of the electorate’s intent. The hypocrisy was suffocating from living a lie! We are now a nation where hypocrisy, pretence, and lies reign in our hearts.
We do not fear God but mock Him day in and day out. Election thieves never stop amazing me: Most of them are religious to a fault. They pray to God to bless them and forgive their sins.
They have no intention of forsaking their sins. But can God be mocked? Of course, He cannot. This article digs deep at specific events that have confirmed beyond reasonable doubt that Tanzania has officially ceased pretending to be a multiparty democracy and is now a one-party political system despite the statutory claims to the contrary.
Videos show ballot boxes tamped to the rim with CCM cast votes sneaked into the polling stations by security forces and local bureaucrats. What kind of democracy that the regime casts votes on behalf of the electorate?
In the last general election of 2020, the malfeasant trick was not to count the vote and announce fictitious results that showed CCM had won by a landslide, which was an outrageous lie. This time around, there was a concerted effort to count the vote, but employees of the authorities cast the vote and not the voters themselves.
Either way, the voter’s power to choose leaders has been hijacked by the authorities! We have an occupation force in Tanzania; CCM lacks the mandate to govern, which is now widely acknowledged.
I am beginning to nurse some serious ambivalence about whether CCM is now so intractable that it will never be salvaged. Its sins are just too many and repetitive, and there is not any whiff of remorse or effort to depart from wrongdoing. I am ashamed even to identify myself as a CCM member.
On the night of the election, Chadema’s website reported two political murders of her candidates. The fatal incidents happened in Manyoni East and Tunduma constituencies. George Juma Mohammed was gunning for a cell chairperson position through the opposition political party, Chadema.
At his home, he was ambushed by CCM members and the police, who shot him dead at his home. However, the police have shared different narratives over the same issue. The police accused the deceased and other Chadema officials of invading an internal meeting of CCM. Then a kerfuffle haf ensued, and the police were called.
During police restoration of peace, a gun accidentally went off that killed the deceased. The police said it was an accidental shooting. It is unclear why CCM will conduct an internal meeting on election night. Whether that alleged meeting was legal is a matter for another day.
However, since the circumstances portrayed by both sides are diametrically opposite, one of the two warring sides is a compulsive liar. I have yet to find videos for correct verification. In the meantime, we are left with incredibly misleading stories amidst the gospel truth.
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The second political murder happened in the Tunduma constituency where, according to Chadema’s letter, their leader was hacked to death in his home.
The police had yet to confirm this murder by the time I was piecing together this article. But a history of Chadema leaders vying for posts being chopped to death is not new.
In the elections of 2015, one Chadema leader, Alphonse Mawazo, who was seeking to be a ward councillor, was slashed to death outside his home.
Mawazo, it was reported, curiously, came out of his house to investigate a sudden power cut; little did he know his killers were behind the power blackout. No sooner he was out, they ambushed him with machetes and killed him.
Chadema’s letter chronicled at least seven episodes of massive election irregularities. These were allegedly committed in Chato, Bariadi Town, Msalala, Kilosa, Kibaha Municipal, Igunga and Segerea. The issue in Chato was that six ballot boxes tamped to the rim with cast votes for CCM were caught red-handed.
The police were summoned, but instead of dealing with the matter, the good samaritans who had reported the incident were apprehended and taken to the police station.
All these good samaritans were Chadema leaders, polling station agents and followers. This incident occurred at Nyaruntembo Division, Nyantimba village, and in a polling station called Nyantimba.
At Bariadi Town, Malambo division, Nyashanda Street, cast votes for a CCM candidate were caught before the elections began. Msalala, Bugarama division, until ten in the morning, the election had not begun because voting ballots for a village chairperson had not been availed at polling stations.
Some ballot paper mix-up was noted with those of polling station A ferried to polling station B and vice versa. It was unclear whether that ballot paper mix-up was deliberate or unintentional.
At Kilosa constituency, Dumila division, Dumila village, the election did not start even at ten because the ballot papers had not arrived!
At Kibaha Municipal, in the three divisions of Tangini, Pangani, and Msangani, the police forcefully removed all Chadema polling agents from their polling stations. After that, many boxes with cast votes for CCM were already placed in the polling stations!
On Machinjioni Street, the polling station supervisor was seen stuffing ballot boxes with cast votes. Chadema polling agents called their leaders at Mathias Street after catching many cast ballots for CCM. The leaders called the police, who came with the DED.
The Chadema leaders and polling agents were rounded up for election interference and taken to police custody! The police arrested Bumija Senkondo, Chadema Regional Chairperson, after reporting many cast votes for CCM in various polling booths.
At Igunga constituency, Chadema reported that over 200 cast votes for CCM were caught. What surprised them was that the police arrested their leaders, who had reported massive election fraud.
In Segerea constituency, Kisukuru division, Kuhanga Street saw its ballot boxes erroneously shipped to Ukonga Constituency, Chanika Street. In the Igunga constituency, all Chadema polling agents were arrested and remanded at various police stations.
Following the above election irregularities, political killings and massive rigging, Chadema through their Director for communications, protocol and foreign affairs, Messr John Mrema, issued on 27th November 2024 the following 4 directives: first, Chadema decried all election irregularities and called upon the police to arrest all those who had marred the elections, second TAMISEMI must explain where cast votes for CCM hailed from, and what steps would be taken against all who had committed election fraud.
Third, Chadema urges TAMISEMI to extend the voting days in all areas where the elections were delayed because of ballot misplacement or illegal votes.
Last, Chadema wants a voting extension in which the police forcefully encumbered the Chadema polling agents from performing their statutory mandates.
My Take
What I reported is only a drop in the ocean. TAMISEMI shouldn’t be given the task of management of local government elections. TAMISEMI is an interested party and cannot do justice to millions of the electorate.
What shocked, appalled and angered me most was the nexus between electoral fraud and embezzlement of public funds.
Election laws that empowered TAMISEMI to manage local government elections have also armed and insulated the officials there from any form of accountability.
They are simply untouchables. If they have the guts to steal elections, then they dare to help themselves with government purses. Former president Jakaya Kikwete had a name for local government officials: “…..viwavi jeshi (armyworms) in the way they gobble public funds, we should disagree less.
TBC reportage is another form of insidious rigging. I have never seen a public broadcaster brazenly stooping so low as TBC. When it comes to opposition news particularly generated by the Chadema leaders, TBC beams their faces, but what they were complaining about was intentionally redacted and deleted, and their replacement was the TBC reporters who spoke on their behalf!
If TBC has an official blackout on Chadema news, please keep up with that without pretending to report about them while vigorously exercising distorted censorship. TBC wants to project that the election was free, fair, and verifiable, which was anything but that!
Sheikh Shams Elmi’s sermon on “Mfumo wa kutengeneza upuuzi” on Elmi TV updates was spot on TBC without mentioning it. TBC is now part and parcel of brainwashing, deceit and outrageous lies.
What is interesting is that despite bombarding us with lies and misinformation, the top TBC echelons seem to be doing their jobs!
In a serious country, most of them would have been axed long ago for a mega disservice to the general public. But this is Tanzania, where lies have been converted into a gospel truth, and the truth is ferociously vilified!
In THE BANALITY SYSTEM, a book by Canadian writer Alain Denault, Denault peeked at how incompetent minds have hijacked governance systems and apportioned lies and misinformation as devices to keep themselves illegally in power indefinitely.
These individuals depend on placing one of their own in all sectors to ensure lies defeat the gospel truth. In the media, whether public or privately owned, they also deploy national resources to capture the operators there through official appointments, outright bribes, and sometimes gratuitous force.
It is called state capture by “scumbags” that is infecting Tanzania of all nations with incurable and dire consequences waiting to implode in the near future.
