In another dramatic turn of events, ZEC has recently announced that the opposition party candidates would still be considered as contestants despite their withdrawal saying, the pull-out procedure was not properly followed, amid an equally controversial election repeat.
However, regardless of the differing stances by the two opposing factions, it is Zanzibar’s Election Act 1984 and the related laws that are at stake.
Yet gain, ZEC has maintained the legality of its chairperson’s decision to void the election which apparently gave the opposition CUF an edge in both the presidential and constituency polls having the party tallied presidential poll results from the stations and even winners at the constituency level declared by the same commission.The political decisions typical of any heated political contestation has adversely affected the electorate, which in the context of Zanzibar, hardly had the chance to breathe from the reign of political violence since independence in December 1963, and notably the revolution, a month later.
Judging from the outcome of the October elections, public expectations out of the Government of National Unity (GNU) over how it could heal the past wounds, vanished as the Isles’ people had been witnessing recurrence of the seemingly state-engineered political violence in the form of beatings on innocent citizens, harassments on members of the opposition parties and apathetic relations by the police on ‘zombie’ violent groups whose masked-face members freely maim and loot people belonging to opposition in broad daylight.
One interested in politics might wonder if politics in the 1.3 million-strong archipelago (2012 Tanzania National Census) was indeed serving the interests of the people, half a century after independence, given an obviously low living standards of the majority especially in Pemba and some parts in Unguja where healthcare, transportation and education are in shambles.
As politics seems to govern and determine nearly everything and leadership seems to be a t the core of power mongering discord, it is high time for the stakeholders to go beyond the traditional Union-related discontents to other areas including sources of revenue, its collections and expenditure policies at which Zanzibar authorities have always been paying little attention.
It is evident that Zanzibar government , has, for example, not even accounted for its income and expenditure revenues out of its shipping agency engagements with a Dubai, UAE-based Philtex whose contract was terminated in 2014. At least it is something yet to be put into public knowledge even after the government had entered into new arrangements.
Though lack of transparency is not something new in Zanzibar, authorities need to be called into question for their inaction. Reports by several committees under the Zanzibar House of Representatives and Zanzibar Anti-corruption and Economic Crimes Authority (ZAECA) had revealed names of the alleged corrupt officials, but the government had been silent over their fate, with the exception of a Director of Broadcasting with the Zanzibar Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) who was booked to court in 2014, but whose developments of the case are, but a mystery.
Worse still is that some of the named corrupt officials became candidates in the last elections and would stand for re-election in March 20 rerun polls, reflecting corruption, poor governance and the related ethical concerns as issues of no significance among political and administrative authorities in Zanzibar.
Thus, no matter how intertwined its economic problems are within the existing Union arrangements, Zanzibar has also other motives beyond the Union folds behind its unpopular leadership.
Therefore, apart from addressing the development imbalance between Pemba and Unguja and even within the sidelined opposition strongholds in Unguja itself, ensuring proper accounting of the country’s revenues and waging an uncompromising war on corruption may help retrieval of the Isles’ economic prosperity, and hence settle the ongoing political and social crises.
Given the circumstances, it would be argued that the ensuing political impasse in Zanzibar is man-made problem that can be easily solved through accountability on the part of high-ranking politicians and civil servants and through working hard to implement sound development policies.
Therefore, the Revolutionary Government of Zanzibar would thus be advised to “…seek first the kingdom of God…” by caring for its people “…and the rest shall be added unto…”, referring to advice from the Holy Bible,.
SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN
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