Tracing Tanzania’s voting patterns in Presidential elections

In four days time, Tanzanians will go to the polls to install the fifth President who will take over State House from President Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete.

Tanzania’s elections have been less competitive since the Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM), that was founded on February 5^th, 1977, has enjoyed dominance following the call by the country’s founding father Mwalimu Julius Nyerere to develop and grow the party.

During the one-party era, the ruling party nominated two candidates in each parliamentary constituency and voters were required to choose from the two.

In the presidential election, the party nominated one person and voters were asked to accept or reject the person. In this way, presidential election looked like a referendum.

Candidates were required to share one campaign platform and means of transport that were provided by the party.

Tanzania’s voting patterns

Analysis of the six General Elections when the country was under one-party rule indicates that on average, the ruling party (Tanganyika African National Union, TANU and from 1977, Chama Cha Mapinduzi, CCM) enjoyed support of over 95%.

In comparison with the elections under multiparty era, CCM appears to be losing support. For example, in the 1990 General Elections under one-party rule, the ruling party got 97.8% in the presidential elections, but in the 2010 elections it scored 62.8% which was a 35% drop.

This means, on average, the ruling party has been losing popularity at a rate of 8.8% per General Election. However, it should be noted that during one-party era there was no voters’ education

Before the 1990 reforms, access to information in Tanzania was very limited; there was only one state owned radio station, a handful of newspapers, no television station, and other new media such as mobile phones, and internet.

Indeed, majority of the voters were relying on state controlled media for news and current affairs. However, following reform, and technological development, the country is teemed with myriad of media outlets.

Current data shows that 92% of the people in Tanzania had access to some form of radio services, and 89% of all households owned radio sets, and 31 owned TV sets in 2010.

The 2015 Presidential expectations

This year’s presidential election is the most competitive in the country’s history pitting former Prime Minister Edward Ngoyai Lowassa of the Chama Cha Demokrasia na Maendeleo (Chadema) against ruling party Chama Cha Mapinduzi’s (CCM) Dr. John Pombe Magufuli and six other candidates.

The presidential campaigns have seen the top two contenders spend millions in advertisement and use of other sophisticated campaigning formats like use of helicopters and excessive colour coding.

Among the factors that will influence the electoral outcome are education, employment and development agenda of the running candidates and parties.