AfricaPress-Tanzania: WHILE generally polling exercise went on smoothly in Kilimanjaro Region, there were few encounters such as rain and some voters’ names missing on the registers.
On Wednesday, the ‘africa-press’ witnessed a large turnout in the early hours of the morning, especially in areas where there are many people that were registered as voters as far as the Moshi Urban constituency is concerned, which included the Majengo, Bomambuzi, Njoro and Pasua wards.
In Moshi Rural District, where there are two constituencies of Moshi Rural and Vunjo, early in the morning, the situation seemed to be straining on the Moshi Rural constituency as opposed to Vunjo constituency, where people seemed to show up early, in big numbers.
The ‘africa-press’ witnessed voters scrambling early in the morning to position themselves at the front of queues to exercise their rights to vote as early as they could yesterday in spite of the fact that it was raining in some areas.
At some polling stations it was revealed that some voters couldn’t find their names at their respective polling stations where they registered.
One of the voters, who preferred anonymity, said she could not vote despite reviewing her voting status due to the fact that she had earlier registered herself as a voter in Dar es Salaam prior to moving to Kilimanjaro region.
“It is true that I was first registered in Dar es Salaam but I went to correct my information in the area I moved to when I came to Kilimanjaro Region, but my name was not available; even when I asked the officials to give me the chance to vote for the presidency section I was rejected,” she said.
When asked to address the issue, Kilimanjaro Regional Electoral Coordinator (REC), Mr Gasper Ijiko, acknowledged the challenge that he said was due to people ignoring instructions issued by the National Electoral Commission (NEC) that urged citizens who were registered as voters to go and check their respective information.
“NEC announced and gave enough time for the registrants to go and verify their information but many seemed to ignore the directives and instructions”, he said.
Mr Ijiko went on to say that NEC also issued directives on the easiest way one could verify voter information via mobile phones but still many people seemed not to respond positively, hence the challenge concerning names in the polling stations.
“This challenge needs urgent attention by registered voters in the future; there is no denying the fact that if one could respond to the NEC directives, everything could be smooth; time has come now for people to develop the habit of following the instructions given by the Government and its institutions related to various events in advance so as to avoid such challenges in the future,” he advised.
Commenting on the situation, one of the residents of Himo area which is included in the Vunjo constituency, Mr Jafari Omar said that it may be due to the fact that Moshi Rural Constituency parliamentary candidate of the main opposition party, Chadema did not stand after she was disqualified subject to petition by her fellow contestants.
“In Vunjo constituency people have come out in large numbers due to the fact the competition here is intense because there parliamentary candidates from CCM, NCCR-Mageuzi and Chadema; the Moshi Rural enthusiasm seemed to have been reduced after the disqualification of the Chadema candidate,” he said, adding, however, the situation may change later and this is because the voting exercise is expected to end at 0400 pm.
Speaking to the ‘Daily News’ by telephone, Mr John Mziray, a resident of Same District, in Kilimanjaro Region, said that the rain that showed early on Wednesday morning, led to the low turnout of voters, although the situation suddenly changed when the rain stopped.
“It started raining early in the morning; this led to the number of voters who started to come out to vote to be low but after the rains stopped, people showed up in large numbers and many polling stations are now overflowing with voters,” he said.
