The Southern Africa Development Cooperation SADC electoral observers have said the Tanzania polls didn’t meet the organisation democratic elections standards.
In a statement, the head of SADC Electoral Observation Mission (SEOM), Mr Richard Msowoya, said in some areas in Tanzania, the voters could not express their democratic will.
‘… it is the SEOM’s tentative conclusion that, in most areas, voters could not express their democratic will. Overall, the 2025 General Election in the United Republic of Tanzania fell short of the requirements of the SADC Principles and Guidelines Governing Democratic Elections,’ read a statement by Mr Msowoya, the former speaker of Malawi.
Tanzania is a member of SADC. Tanzania incumbent president, Samia Suluhu Hassan was declared the winner of the elections by 98 percent of the cast votes and she was sworn in yesterday. The protests against the manner in which the elections were conducted left over 700 people killed.
Some of the major opposition parties were blocked from participating in the elections while others declined to participate without electoral reforms. The elections were also marred by violence as protestors went the streets claiming that they were not free or fair. The SADC observers said their mission noted a low voter turnout.
The observers’ said stakeholders told them that the detention and trial of Mr Tundu Lissu, the leader of the main opposition party, CHADEMA, on treason charges, and the disqualification of some opposition candidates, particularly of Mr Luhaga Mpina of ACT Wazalendo also raised questions about the fairness of the electoral landscape, especially on the mainland of Tanzania.
‘Some stakeholders viewed the seven arrests and disqualification as undermining the URT’s multi-party system by removing legitimate competition in the electoral process. This appears to create an uneven political playing field, which in turn also discourages public participation and voter turnout,’ the statement stated.
They said blocking the opponents in an election by a member state is contrary to their principles that ‘guarantee an environment of open contest with no undue exclusion and restrictions on anyone to vote as well as the right of eligible and qualified citizens to stand as candidates in any election”.
But the Tanzania electoral body claimed there was a high turnout, with 37.6 million voters, of which 31.9 million chose President Suluhu. SADC observers also said there was ballot stuffing.
‘The Mission observed that in some polling stations, there were multiple orderly stacked ballots in the ballot box during voting, which created a perception of ballot stuffing, and an impression that individual(s) cast more than one vote at a time with the intention to cheat the election system,’ the statement reads.
They said some of their colleagues were threatened with violence. ‘Most of our observers could not observe closing and counting due to incidents and threats of violence in some areas; and The Mission did not observe the presence of domestic observers in most of the polling stations,’ Mr Msowoya said. They added that their observers were also harassed by security personnel, who forced them to delete photographs taken during their tasks. They asked the aggrieved parties ‘to channel their concerns through established legal procedures and processes and not resort to violence or threats thereof’.
However, the Tanzania government changed laws so that the results released by their electoral body can’t be contested in courts of law.