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Civic education stressed in elections
2006-02-22 08:00:11
By Joyce Mkinga
The Tanzania Election Monitoring Committee (TEMCO) has stressed the importance of civic education for voters for free and fair elections.
Presenting a paper, General Elections: How Free and How Fair? at a TEMCO-organised conference on the conduct of 2005 General Election in Tanzania, Prof Samwel Mushi of the University of Dar es Salaam said yesterday that civic education was vital so that the voters could understand what they were supposed to do pertaining to voting.
He said voter’s education enables eligible voters to exercise a free choice in the election process that included freedom to register as a voter, to participate in nomination of candidate, directly or through representative, to attend campaigns meetings and freedom to exercise a choice at the polls.
He said during last year’s elections, the National Electoral Commission (NEC) conducted voter’s education, and some, issues were well covered, even though in some areas there were shortcomings that need to be addressed in future elections.
He said voters attended well election campaigns but were denied chances to ask questions and in some incidences people from one party were denied to attend other parties\’ campaigns.
Prof Mushi said although voting was in general better managed, there were some hitches that included cases of people losing their cards, failure to find their names in the display list or in the register.
He also said illiteracy limited voters’ capacity to exercise free choice both in Zanzibar and Mainland, as they had to depend on friends or presiding officers for guidance.
Contributing to the discussions, Wilfred Lwakatare (CUF) said that in future elections more emphasis should be put on civic education because it seems many people, especially in rural areas do not understand the abc of the electoral process.
Lwakatare, who lost in the last elections where vying the Bukoba Urban Constituency parliamentary seat, said civic education should extend and cover on different tricks used by some parties to illegally win the elections.
’If we want to have a free and fair elections, TEMCO should labour research that would enable them uncover tricks used to win elections illegally,’ he said.
The NCCR Director of Elections, Mgeta Bakoma, told the conference that transparency in the election process was important to enable people exercise their rights.
He said NEC has been educating the public differently from what happen on the ground.
He gave an example of Permanent Voters Register display whereby voters were told that it will be displayed for them to uncover illegal voters.
The fact was that the PVR was kept in the office and if one required to check, he/she might take hours because of so many names.
He wondered why it was not displayed on the wall for everybody to check.
The CCM Bukoba Chairman, Pius Ngeze, said that free and fair election could only be achieved if people understand that in such contest there is winning and losing and therefore they should be ready for whatever results.
’It’s interesting that whenever one loses the election he says it was not fair but when he wins then it was free and fair,’ he said.
TADEA Chairman Lifa Chipaka said that it was not unfair for the voter’s education to be left to the NGOs alone.
Chipaka said political parties, being stakeholders in the election process should have done the job better because of their knowledge of their voters.
The two-day conference aimed at providing feedback of the 2005 elections to NEC, ZEC, the government, political parties, civil society and the general public.
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