Ruling party losing ground to the opposition in urban areas

A voter casts his ballot. The final tally released yesterday shows that the ruling party generally won the election, but it’s losing ground to the opposition, particularly in urban centres. PHOTO | FILE 

By Habel Chidawali, The Citizen Correspondent

Posted  Thursday, December 25   2014 at  07:47

In Summary

The results saw a new party, ACT, acquire seats at all levels it competed, leaving popular parties behind.

Dodoma. Prime Minister’s Office yesterday release official results of the Local Government Election held on December 14 and 21, which show that the ruling party, CCM, lost many seats in the urban areas.

The results saw a new party, ACT, acquire seats at all levels it competed, leaving popular parties behind.

Despite the round two election held on December 21, the returning officer, Mr Khlaist Luanda, said that there were still some villages in Singida and Mara regions that failed to conduct the elections due to various reasons, including pending cases in courts.

Mr Luanda said that a total of 15 political parties participated in the election including, CCM, Chadema, CUF, NCCR- Mageuzi,TLP, NLD, ACT, UDP and APPT Maendeleo.

Others are Chauma, NRA, DP, Tadea, UMD and ADC whereas three parties ADC, Tadea and DP did not score even a single seat at any level.

The results show that CCM got more seats in the rural areas where it scooped over 70 per cent of the total villages and hamlets it competed for. The ruling party obtained slightly over 66 per cent of streets in the urban areas.

A total of 11,750 out of 12,443 villages in Tanzania mainland participated in the election. Of these, CCM got 9,378 (79.81 per cent), Chadema 1,754 (14.93 percent), CUF 516 (4.39 per cent), NCCR Mageuzi 67 (0.57 per cent) and TLP 10 (0.09 per cent).

Others are NLD 2 (0.02 per cent), ACT 8 (0.07 per cent), UDP 14 (0.12 per cent) and NRA 1(0.001 per cent) while other parties didn’t score anything.

An for the hamlets, 60,688 out of 64,616 participated in the election, whereby CCM got 48,447 seats (79.83 per cent), Chadema 9,145 (15.07 per cent), CUF 2,561 (4.22 per cent), NCCR Mageuzi 339 (0.56 per cent), TLP 55 (0.09 per cent), NLD 2(0.02 per cent) and UDP 54 (0.09 per cent).

In streets, 3,875 seats were competed for, and CCM got 2,583 (66.66 per cent), Chadema 980 (25.29 per cent), and CUF (6.86 per cent).

Others are, NCCR Mageuzi which got 28 seats (0.72 per cent), TLP only one seat (0.03 per cent), ACT 12 (0.31 per cent), UDP 3 (0.08 percent), NRA 1(0.03 per cent and UMD only a single seat (0.03 per cent).