THE National Electoral Commission (NEC), has outlined a number of strategies targeting to improve preparations and conduct of future general elections --the introduction of Zonal Offices being one of the plan.
Director of Elections Mr Ramadhan
Kailima told the ‘Daily News’ in an exclusive interview recently here
that the introduction of the electoral body’s Zonal Offices will help
simplify logistics of the elections among others
He mentioned the envisaged advantages as
the more effectiveness in undertaking day to day NEC operations as
opposed to the present when the body bears the offices in the country’s
capital Dar es Salaam alone. “I have proposed a number of strategies in a
bid to ensure NEC becomes a real national body with representation
countrywide.
That will make it more effective and
sometimes less costly to oversee the performance of the general
elections among other functions,” he said.
According to Mr Kailima, already there
were proposals on some measures to be implemented in last year’s general
election but time could not allow since some crucial arrangements were
not yet mature then.
The introduction of the Zonal offices,
he said will subsequently lead to the creation of employment since the
new facilities would need bigger workforce --to increase from the
current 141.
He mentioned another new exercise in the
pipeline as what he called Mock Elections- which will be used to
demonstrate how best the democratic multiparty elections should be
conducted freely and fairly.
Another task will include revisiting and
possibly amending some of the legislations to make them clearer and
easier to execute citing one of them as the Elections Expenses Act.
The Act needs to be revisited to
‘tighten firmly’ candidates and other parties currently taking
advantages of the present loopholes in the Act in use today.
Mr Kailima who was here for post general
elections stakeholders meeting said another new arrangement in the
offing will also involve the introduction of the Democracy Week which
will be held on annual basis.
“This week will be special for the
provision of elections education where the public will be free to ask
anything about elections and their views on what they think NEC could do
to improve them,” said Mr Kailima.
The week which is expected to draw
attention of elections stakeholders will be commemorated just like the
popular Public Service Week or Road Safety Week that are marked every
year.
The NEC boss said it was equally
important that post elections evaluations should also be introduced for
the results to be used to improve the forthcoming general elections and
maintain a good track.
Asked on whether NEC will abolish the
arrangement where political parties prepare their own election
monitoring and results computing centers as it was the case last general
election, Mr Kailima said cautiously that the arrangement had not
problem.
“We have no problem with the parties
compiling the results from the polling stations but they will strictly
be restricted from announcing or declaring their candidates as winners,”
he said.
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