Dar es Salaam - The situation in Tanzania is calm but tense in the archipelago of Zanzibar following a botched up election process Sunday that went well in the rest of the East African nation.
The race in Zanzibar had been predicted to be tough between Seif Shariff Hamad of the Civic United Front or CUF and Aman, the son of the founding president of Zanzibar, Abeid Karume.
Aman is candidate of the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi or CCM. Election officials on the quasi-autonomous state were forced to halt the vote counting process early Monday. Balloting has to be repeated following widespread election irregularities in 16 of the island's 50 constituencies.
Polling stations had been opened late and voting materials delivered out of time or not at all in several of the polling stations in Zanzibar's Urban West region and parts of Pemba.
CUF, the country's largest opposition party, has called for a fresh poll, condemning the Zanzibar Electoral Commission for the irregularities.
"We heap blame on the Zanzibar Electoral Commission for the numerous irregularities that slowed up the voting process. Thousands of people were unable to vote after election materials arrived late or did not arrive at all," the party's director of human rights and external affairs, Mohamed Ali Yusuf, told PANA.
The party's presidential candidate called for the resignation of the Zanzibari government, the imposition of a transitional government to oversee a fresh poll and a re-run of the whole polling exercise.
"We believe Chama Cha Mapinduzi is not the party in power. There should be a temporary government to work with all parties until a new election is held," media reports quoted him as saying in Zanzibar Monday.
Addressing a different press conference on the island, CCM's Aman conceded to the irregularities but dismissed calls for the formation of a transitional government to oversee fresh balloting.
Top Zanzibar Electoral Commission officials are passing the buck to the low cadres saying all returning officers had been issued with ballot materials by Saturday.
The commission's information spokesman, Idrissa Jecha said the officers should have contacted the body if there had been a shortfall in the distribution of ballot material.
Meanwhile, following the fragile atmosphere in Zanzibar, the ruling party issued a statement Monday, blaming the opposition for having connived with the commission to wreck the poll process.
A high-ranking official within the party on the side of Zanzibar, Hassan Diria, alleged some electoral officials had colluded with the CUF to mar the polling exercise.
While commending the commission for ordering a rerun of the process in the affected constituencies, Diria said extra caution should be taken to avoid the same pitfalls.
Tension was heightening on the island after riot police fired in the air to disperse partisans of the CUF.
The crowds had gone out to cheer the annulment of the polls in the affected constituencies when riot police confronted them.
There were no immediate reports of casualty, but Aman, the island's CCM presidential hopeful condemned the opposition party for exploiting the impasse to orchestrate trouble.
Commonwealth observers have already condemned the botched polls as "shameless."
"In many places this election was a shambles. The cause is either massive incompetence or a deliberate attempt to wreck at least part of this election, the observers said in a statement.
It remains to be seen whether the fragile situation may lead to a similar scenario, five years ago that led to CUF, CCM's major opponent, contesting poll results.
It had been argued in 1995 that an impasse that followed the polls had been caused by too much interference from local and foreign election monitors.
Seven countries including those of the EU and the US had protested the results.
In a 1997 study, Teddy Maliyamkono, of the University of Dar es Salaam, said people aged 28-37 felt the 1995 general elections on the island were not free and fair, or free and fair but with irregularities.
The views on fairness are predictable by party affiliations, the free and affair are high for CCM (75 percent) against CUF (9 percent), the not free and not fair percentages are 52 percent for CUF and 30 percent for CCM, Maliyamkono said in the study "The Political Plight of Zanzibar."
Zanzibar has remained a hotbed for political trouble since the islands joined with Tanganyika in 1964 to form present-day Tanzania.
There had been widespread election-related violence on the islands, with mainlanders resident on the islands being given marching orders by unidentified people.
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