RUCCI
JF-Expert Member
- Oct 6, 2011
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The National Electoral Commission (NEC) admitted yesterday that, given the time left to the referendum, it may not be able to biometrically register all eligible voters.
The referendum, seen as a signature achievement by the current regime, is scheduled to take place on 30 April.
But, as things stand, the authorities would appear to be caught between a rock and a hard place-either go to the referendum with incomplete biometric registration or postpone the poll until all eligible voters are registered.
NEC has received only 250 of the 9,000 Biometric Voter Registration (BVR) it ordered before the end of last year.
According to the schedule, the electoral body will start registering eligible voters in Njombe Region on Monday next week. The exercise will last until March 25-meaning NEC will spend more than a month in one region. There are more than 25 regions in Tanzania mainland that will have to be covered in the remaining period of roughly two months.
Two hundred and fifty BVR kits have been transported to Njombe ahead of the exercise, which takes place from Monday next week, NEC chairman Judge (rtd) Damian Lubuva told reporters in Dar es Salaam yesterday. Some 2,100 kits will be delivered in the second week of March. But even with the additional kits, NEC remains unsure that it will manage to register over 20 million voters ahead of the referendum. NEC had earlier ordered 15,000 BVR kits to register about 24 million voters but had to settle for 9,000 kits for lack of funding.
Had the 9,000 kits or at least 60 percent of the order been available by February, NEC would have achieved almost 80 percent of its mission.
Going by the NEC data, only 2,350 kits will be available by the second week of March. It is not clear why the supplier is delivering only a small portion of kits at a time when the country desperately needs the technology to change the voters' registration from manual to BVR.
Yesterday, Judge Lubuva said the extent to which they can register more voters in a short period depends entirely on the number of BVR kits they receive. "I am confident that the registration will end before the day of the referendum," he added. "We will let the country know if this is not achieved within the given timeline."
At some point, the NEC chairman said the electoral body would not hold the referendum before updating its register to ensure that all 23.9 million eligible voters are included in the new register.
Political party leaders have lately taken to declaring that NEC will be to blame if things go wrong with the BVR registration.
When CCM's Ideology and Publicity Secretary Nape Nnauye toured Mwananchi Communications offices recently, he said NEC had failed to shed light on the confusion as to whether it has the means and capacity to carry out registration using the technology even as time runs out.
At a meeting with leaders of all political parties this month, Chadema Chairman Freeman Mbowe, NCCR Mageuzi's James Mbatia and CUF's Prof Lipumba challenged NEC to come clean on the BVR registration.
Mr Nnauye said he had doubts as to whether the Commission was prepared well enough to hold the exercise and added that NEC must answer key questions to quell doubts about its capacity to handle the process.
The questions include how well NEC is prepared for technological and logistics challenges that emerged when other African countries rolled out BVR kits. NEC is also being challenged to assure the public that the 30-day period allocated for registration is enough, taking into consideration the fact that BVR is new in Tanzania.
Yesterday, the NEC chairman warned politicians to stop using the BVR debate as an excuse to incite people to violence. He asked them to reflect on their statements and the impact they are likely to have on the public.
Judge Lubuva, who was speaking at a workshop for co-ordinators of voter registration and BVR kit operators from all regions, said NEC was prepared well enough to ensure that the exercise goes smoothly and gave an assurance that there was no cause for alarm.
"It is not right for leaders to make pronouncements that may plunge the country into chaos," he said. "It is high time we refrained from making such statements ahead of the registration.''
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