Police deploy water cannon, teargas to disperse Chadema supporters in Iringa

Iringa Regional Police Commander (RPC), Ramadhani Mungi

Police in Iringa Municipality yesterday used teargas canisters and water cannons to disperse crowd of people who gathered at the Municipal Council offices, pressing the Iringa Urban Constituency returning officer to release election results for the parliamentary candidate.

Eyewitness told ‘The Guardian’ here that the situation turned sour at around 4:45pm when a crowd of people (allegedly to be Chadema followers) who gathered at the municipal offices to press the officer-in-charge to release the election results for the parliamentary seat.

The situation compelled the fully-armed police officers from the Field Force Unit (FFU) to start dispersing the crowd. 

Shops and other businesses were closed in Iringa as armed police in their vehicles were seen roaming around the municipality.

Chadema followers were pushing the returning officer to announce the result as their candidate Rev. Peter Msigwa was leading the polls.

But, the returning officer of the constituent, Akhmad  Sawa on Sunday failed to release them because in one of the polling stations two ballot boxes were stolen by unknown people.
At the Ipogolo ‘C’ polling station, the election was held on Tuesday and at around 4:30pm people started gathering at the returning officer’s office waiting for the whole results to be released as they were being promised.

“We were promised that the results will be out by today (Tuesday), but until now, nothing is being done, that’s why we were forced to come closer to ask the returning officer to release the results,” said Rachael Msijala one of the Iringa residents.

“We want the returning officer to announce the results because we know for sure that Msigwa is the winner and they have been dilly-dallying to announce the results in order to play down with our results and we’re not ready for that,” she said.

A businessman in the municipality, Mburati Gisechi was forced to close down his shop because of the police force’s action of threatening people so that they play down with the results.

“…what I am seeing here is that police are trying to bulldoze democracy as they have been using force so that they bring in a CCM contender who is not a people’s choice. And they do so to accomplish the ruling party’s mission of taking the constituency from opposition…this is unfair in the civilized country like Tanzania.”

Efforts to seek comments from the Iringa Regional Police Commander (RPC), Ramadhani Mungi, proved futile. 

SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN