TANZANIA: Election campaigns kicks off

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

DAR ES SALAAM, 22 Aug 2005 (IRIN) - Presidential election campaigns kicked off in Tanzania on Sunday, with political leaders promising to wrench the east African nation out of grinding poverty, as well as fight graft and enhance the status of women in society.

The ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM - Revolutionary Party) launched its campaign with candidate Jakaya Kikwete pledging to maintain the nation's peace and stability "at all costs", while keeping improvement of the economy on top of its agenda.

"People who sow seeds of discord by preaching tribalism, racism and religious misunderstanding should find another place to go," Kikwete, a devout Muslim, told some 60,000 people at a rally in Dar es Salaam on Sunday.

"We promise to respect people of all creeds: those who are Christians, Muslims as well as those who have decided not to follow any religion," Kikwete, the nation's charismatic foreign minister, said.

He also promised to ensure robust pro-poor economic growth that would focus on creating jobs for hundreds of thousand of rural and urban youths.

"Increased agricultural production is going to be taken as a matter of life and death, but special push will be given to industrialisation; especially creation of agro-processing and labour intensive factories," he said.

Other political parties, promising much the same, are due to begin their campaigns later in the week. Some published their elections manifestos at the weekend. On Sunday, the National Convention for Construction and Reform released its manifesto that focuses on maintaining peace, reducing poverty, creation of at least two million jobs, and raising the status of women.

"These are four areas that our party will focus," James Mbatia, the party's chairman, said at a news conference in Dar es Salaam.

The main opposition party, the Civic United Front (CUF), said its elections manifesto would be released later on Monday, while the Tanzania Labour Party (TLP) promised to launch what it described as the "people's manifesto" later this week.

FRIST WOMAN IN PRESIDENTIAL RACE

On Saturday, the National Electoral Commission announced 10 candidates, amongst them the first woman gunning to succeed President Benjamin Mkapa when he completes his second and last five-year term in office in November.

Commission Chairman Lewis Makame said 11 of 13 candidates who collected nomination forms had submitted them by Saturday's 1600 (1300 GMT) deadline, but one was disqualified and two failed to show up.

Makame said the candidate for Chama Cha Ustawi Tanzania, James Mapalala, failed to secure the mandatory endorsement of at least 200 people from 10 of the country's 26 regions by the deadline. Makame also said two candidates who collected presidential forms never showed up by the deadline.

While it may be too early to predict the outcome of the elections with any degree of certainty, local political observers are already saying Kikwete is the favourite. The virtually unknown Anne Senkoro, 43, of the Progress Party of Tanzania, is being given little chance of winning, but has been hailed for joining this traditionally male-dominated race for the nation's top post. Two other women - the Zanibaris Naila Jiddawi of the NCCR and Rukia Omar Kiota of the Tanzanian Labour Party (TLP)- are running mates.

Also in the running are Ibrahim Lipumba of CUF, which is the strongest party on the islands of Zanzibar and Pemba, and Augustine Mrema of the TLP. Both are veteran politicians who lost to the Mkapa in the 1995 and 2000 polls.

In a bid to improve their chances of success, an alliance of five small opposition parties has agreed to field a single presidential candidate. He is Edmund Mvungi, a human rights activist and law lecturer.

Others in the race for the top government office are Freeman Mbowe of Chama Cha Demokrasi na Maendeleo; Christopher Mtikila of the Democratic Party; Emmanuel Makaidi of the National League for Democracy; Leonard Shayo of Demokrasia Makini; and Peter Kyara of Sauti Ya Umma.

The polls on 30 October will be the third since pluralism was restored in 1992. Multiparty democracy was banned in 1965, three years after the country's independence from Britain.

Only CCM - formed in 1977 when the Tanzanian African National Union and Afro Shirazi party merged - has managed to name candidates in all the 232 parliamentary constituencies and 2,554 wards in Tanzania. Under the law, 30 percent of parliamentary seats are reserved for women; thus hundreds of women are currently jostling for a place in the national assembly that sits in the central city of Dodoma.

[ENDS]