Nigerian rights lawyer, Chidi Odinkalu, has filed a petition at the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights (AfCHPR) challenging the reelection of President John Magufuli of Tanzania.
Mr. Odinkalu, lead counsel to the presidential candidate of opposition ACT Wazalendo party, Seif Sharif Hamad, said the October 28 election was fraught with multiple violations of the electoral law and rigged in favour of the incumbent CMM party and its candidate.
The petitioners accused Tanzania’s security forces of perpetuating unlawful arrests, arbitrary detention and malicious prosecution of opposition party members, including its presidential candidate, Mr. Hamad.
“There were multiple illegalities, irregularities and malpractices during the pre-electoral period, voting, counting, tallying, transmitting and declaring the respective presidential election results,” a suit filed by Mr. Odinkalu on November 20 said.
The petition, seen by Peoples Gazette, added that while millions of voters were disenfranchised under the watchful eye of the country’s electoral body chair Wilson Mahera — an alleged member of the ruling party, who was unilaterally appointed by President Magufuli — cases of vote-buying, announcement of incorrect and nonexistent results were rife.
The petitioners noted that they approached the African Court due to the unavailability of local remedies.
The Tanzanian constitution restricts its judiciary from probing the election of any candidate that has been duly returned as elected by the country’s electoral commission.
“When a candidate is declared by the Electoral Commission to have been duly elected in accordance with this Article, then no court of law shall have the jurisdiction to inquire into the election of the candidate,” Article 41(7) of the Tanzanian Constitution says.
The petition held that ousting the jurisdiction of the court and forbidding local remedies for electoral malpractices violate the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, as well as other civil rights conventions.
Mr. Odinkalu and other lawyers prayed the court to, among other things, order the respondent (the Republic of Tanzania) to investigate and bring to account all persons found to be responsible for the electoral offences perpetrated against the people of Tanzania, and the ACT Wazalendo party’s presidential candidate.
President Magufuli was elected for a second five-year term after amassing over 84 percent of the total votes cast, Tanzania’s national electoral commission said on November 1.
It, however, remains unclear if the intervention of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights — domiciled in Arusha, Tanzania — would prove fatal for Mr. Magufuli’s reelection.
Peoplesgazatte
