Opposition parties criticise Tanzania poll

Tanzanian opposition parties criticised last weekend's presidential and parliamentary elections on Thursday and there were accusations of vote rigging as results emerged at a snail's pace.

The Civic United Front (CUF) cited widespread failings in the electoral process, a day after Willibrod Slaa, the presidential candidate for the Chadema party, demanded a recount and accused the intelligence services of fiddling the results.

Tanzania's National Electoral Commission (NEC) admitted on Wednesday that there could have been irregularities in the vote tallying but said any errors would not influence the final result and rejected calls for a fresh recount.

"The whole election process was flawed and had a lot of irregularities," Said Miraji, CUF's campaign manager, told Reuters. East Africa's second largest economy has enjoyed relative stability in a volatile region and has held three successive multi-party elections since 1995.

The slow release of results triggered three days of clashes between opposition supporters and riot police in pockets of the country. There were no early reports of violence on Thursday.

A top intelligence official rejected Slaa's allegations that it was cooking the results in incumbent President Jakaya Kikwete's favour and said the claims were intended to stir up public anger.

"These allegations being made by Dr Slaa are false," Jacky Mugendi Zoka, deputy director-general of the Tanzania Intelligence and Security Services (TISS), told a news conference.

"The national intelligence agency has no reason or intention of rigging the results of the election, since such a move is not in the best interests of our nation," said Zoka, who rarely addresses the media.

"NEVER A FREE AND FAIR ELECTION"

Initial results give Kikwete a comfortable advantage in a vote seen as a test of the dominance of his ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) party, which has struggled to tackle poverty in Africa's fourth biggest gold producer.

Another presidential candidate, Peter Mziray, chairman of the Progressive Party of Tanzania (PPT-Maendeleo), backed Chadema's accusations, attacking the announcement of results by the electoral commission without involving parties in the counting process.

"It is as if they were just reading a prepared speech," Mziray told Reuters Under the constitution, parliamentary and local council results can be challenged in the courts but final presidential results as announced by the NEC cannot be challenged.

Independent election observers said the electoral commission and government officials openly favoured the ruling party.

"There were unnecessary delays in announcing results from some constituencies. We are also concerned by the voters' register and want those names on the list to be verified," Martina Kabisama, chairwoman of the Tanzania Civil Society Consortium Election Observation, told reporters.

She echoed analysts who said Tanzania needed to have an independent electoral commission to oversee general elections.

"There is no independent electoral commission in Tanzania in terms of international law and there can never be a free and fair election in the country under the current set up," Abdallah Safari, a lawyer and professor of law at the University of Dar es Salaam, said.

The NEC has said final results will be released on Friday at the latest and government officials told Reuters the new president would likely be sworn in on Saturday.