Tanzania’s two main opposition parties demand fresh polls after denouncing last week’s presidential vote as fraudulent, according to BBC.
The Chadema and ACT-Wazalendo parties, in a joint news conference, also called on Tanzanians to come out for mass protest from Monday.
Incumbent President John Maufuli was declared the winner by the electoral commission in the election with 84 percent of the vote.
Chadema alleges that the ballot boxes were interfered with after agents from the opposition parties were denied access to the polling stations.
“We first call for fresh elections as soon as possible,” the party’s chairman, Freeman Mbowe, said on Saturday as reported by BBC. “We call for continuous, peaceful, countrywide demonstrations until our demands are met.”
According to ACT-Wazendo leader Zitto Kabwe, the decision to call for mass action was for “the future of our country”.
“We cannot accept going back to a one-party system,” he added.
Chedema presidential candidate and Magufuli’s main rival, Tundu Lissu garnered only 13 percent.
Lissu on Thursday said:Â “was not an election by both Tanzanian and international laws. It was just a gang of people who have just decided to misuse state machinery to cling to power”.
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However the head of the National Electoral Commission, Semistocles Kaijage dismissed the allegation of fake ballot papers saying the claims were unsubstantiated.
According to an observer from the East African Community, the elections were “conducted in a regular manner” but the US embassy in Dar es Salaam said that “irregularities and the overwhelming margins of victory raise serious doubts about the credibility of the results… as well as concerns about the government of Tanzania’s commitment to democratic values”.
President Magufuli has been in office since 2015 but his party CCM has been in power since the country got its independence in 1961.
