The EU has given its final say on Tanzania’s 2015 elections. Photo: Daniel Hayduk
The EU has called for more transparency in Tanzania’s electoral commission, changes to the cybercrimes act & reiterated ‘great concern’ over the re-run of Zanzibar’s election.
The report by the European Union Election Observation Mission (EU EOM) says that while elections were ‘largely well managed,’ one of the key concerns was the transparency of the National Electoral Commission (NEC) and the Zanzibar Electoral Commission (ZEC).
“Following the ZEC decision to annul the Zanzibar election results, the EU EOM and other international observer missions in a joint statement expressed their great concern and requested the ZEC provide evidence to justify this unprecedented decision. Such evidence has never been presented,” says the report, issued on June 2.
The report also made several other recommendations, including calling for a revision of the Cybercrimes act, which was used to shut down opposition party exit polling procedures on election day, October 25, 2015.
In total, the mission deployed 141 observers across the country from all 28 EU Member States, as well as Norway, Switzerland and Canada, making it the largest international observation mission for the elections.
