Tanzania opposition flags 'deceased voters' in alleged rigging plot

ZANZIBAR, TANZANIA - Zanzibar's main opposition leader told AFP on Monday the ruling party and the electoral commission intend to rig the upcoming election, claiming deceased individuals have been registered to vote.

Tanzania's semi-autonomous archipelago of roughly 1.9 million people has a history of tense elections plagued with violence and irregularities, but calm has so far prevailed.

Some 700,000 islanders will vote for both mainland presidential candidates and a local president from Tuesday, when polling stations open early -- long a bugbear of the opposition, which says Zanzibar is too small to require two days of voting.

Local presidential candidate Othman Masoud Othman, for the opposition ACT-Wazalendo party, told AFP the Zanzibar Electoral Commission (ZEC) was allowing ineligible voters to take part in early voting, describing it as "early stealing".

The current vice-president is running against Hussein Mwinyi, whose ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) party is expected to sweep national polls.

ACT-Wazalendo has consistently opposed early oting, implemented in 2020's election, which is meant to allow officials and police to vote.

"The motive behind it was purely to enable the ruling party to rig the election because early voting gives them extra votes, which is not properly monitored," Othman said.

"We have scrutinised the voters registry... There are people who are deceased, quite a number of them," he said.

Othman also accused the commission of planning to bar ACT-Wazalendo agents from polling stations, saying the monitoring process remained "very opaque".

But ZEC chairman George Joseph Kazi labelled such claims "false news".

"There is no name of a deceased person in the registry... there is also no underaged person," he told reporters.

"We have followed the law... ACT is creating stories to use later... then create tension."

Othman also questioned the overbearing role the mainland plays in island politics, describing it as an "uneven, unequal, unfair relationship".

The island was joined with the mainland to create Tanzania in 1964, with Zanzibar governed by a unity government.

Mainland Tanzania will head to the polls on October 29, although the main opposition candidates have been barred from participating.

Amnesty International has described a "wave of terror" involving "enforced disappearances, arbitrary arrests, torture and... extrajudicial killings" ahead of this week's election.