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CUF censures EALA elections
2006-11-04 09:03:30
By Ludger Kasumuni
The main opposition, Civic United Front (CUF) has supported the move by the candidates who lost during Thursday’s East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) election to contest the results in court.
Speaking at a press conference in Dar es Salaam yesterday, CUF Chairman Prof Ibrahim Lipumba was disgusted by the manner the EALA election was conducted.
The outspoken opposition chief said the laid down rules and procedures were grossly violated.
Those who lost and have expressed intention to seek legal redress are Prof Abdallah Safari, Abubakar Rakesh and Muhamad Dedes. They all vied for a single slot, which was won by United Democratic’s (UDP), Dr Fortunatus Masha.
Prof Lipumba said under the parliamentary procedures governing EALA, the opposition camp in Zanzibar was supposed to field candidates out of, which one would join two drawn from the ruling party, CCM.
According to CUF chief, under the laid down procedures, since the last general election results recorded by the National Electoral Commission (NEC) had indicated that CCM had won by 54.6 per cent and CUF had 46.4 per cent of total votes cast in the Isles, CUF was supposed to field a candidate during EALA election.
At the same time, Prof Lipumba said the overall results of the last general election recorded by NEC showed that CCM had won by 70 per cent, while the opposition had 30 per cent of the total votes cast, implying that the opposition was supposed to have three seats out of the nine slots to the EALA.
He claimed that Speaker of the National Assembly Samwel Sitta and House Clerk Damian Foka had misinterpreted the rules governing the EALA election. He claimed that the procedure was carefully tailored to favour CCM.
”We strongly support our candidates who have undemocratically lost in the East African Legislative Assembly election. We support them in their decision to seek legal redress,” Prof Lipumba said.
He hailed the opposition camp for boycotting the entire EALA election in the House.
He added: ”We commend all the legislators from the opposition camp who had demonstrated the courage to boycott the House session during the flawed elections.”
He said the original list of contestants had included the name of CUF candidate for Zanzibar slots of EALA, Muhamad Dedes, but on Thursday morning this week the name did not appear on the list contrary to the agreement made between the House Secretary and Chief Whip, Hamad Rashi Mohamed.
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