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From: TT
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Photo: AP / TT
John Magufuli of Tanzania (in front of the microphone) won a landslide victory in this week’s presidential election. But the result is strongly questioned. File photo from Election Day Oct. 28.
The current president of Tanzania, John Magufuli, has won a resounding victory in the presidential elections this week. But the outcome of the elections is strongly questioned.
According to the East African country’s National Election Commission, Magufuli received 84 percent of voter support in Wednesday’s election, while the main opponent, Tundu Lissu, only managed to garner 13 percent of voter support.
But the result is not indisputable. The opposition calls the election “a sham” and one of the heads of African affairs at the US State Department, Tibor Nagy, wrote on Twitter that “we remain deeply concerned about reports of systematic intervention in the democratic process.”
Already on Thursday, Tundu Lissu, who represents the opposition party Chadema, declared that he will not accept the result of the elections.
– Whatever happens yesterday (election day) there was no other option and therefore we will not admit it. We will not accept the result.
According to Lissu, party observers were unable to enter the polls. He urged his supporters of the peaceful protests and the outside world not to recognize the outcome of the elections.
Tundu Lissu recently returned to Tanzania from Belgium, where he has been for three years after surviving an assassination attempt in his home country when he was shot 16 times.
His entry into the Tanzanian electoral movement gave new impetus to a disintegrated opposition that has lost steam after years of attacks, arrests and bans on political demonstrations.
John Magufuli has been president since 2015. He represents the Revolutionary Socialist Party (CCM), which has been in power since the liberation of Britain in 1961. Under Magufuli, the party has tended to become increasingly authoritarian.
Turnout in Wednesday’s election was just over 50 percent.
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