{Former Prime Minister Judge (rtd) Joseph Warioba has shown trust in President John Magufuli. He says his style of leadership will help unite Tanzanians and iron out all misunderstandings that resulted from last year’s polls.}
He said that a number of predicaments such us hatred and segregation emerged during the election process, but Dr Magufuli will, certainly, normalise the situation.
Judge Warioba made the remarks in Dar es Salaam during a meeting jointly organised by Research and Education for Democracy in Tanzania (REDET) and Legal and Human Right Centre (LHRC) to assess the 2015 general election.
The theme of the meeting was “A Postmortem of Tanzania 2015 Elections: Observers’ Contribution Towards Enhanced Credibility, Freeness and Fairness.”
He hailed President Magufuli for his graft-fighting drive which aims at putting public offices in order and restoring ethics and discipline. The former PM noted that though elections were held fairly and peacefully, there were shortcomings that were fuelled by political ideologies.
“There were some offensive words used by candidates which created hatred and disunity. These are things which are likely to breach peace and cause instability,” he said. He warned that currently there is a gap that has emerged between elders and young people.
In contesting for various posts the youth feel that elders are outdated while the elders believe that young people are rude. Judge Warioba cautioned the youth to refrain from political moves that aim at sowing seeds of hatred and disunity.
He said that youth should focus on participating in socio-economic activities. On his part, the Minister for Justice and Constitutional Affairs, Dr Harrison Mwakyembe, said the government was going to work on various challenges that would be highlighted in the report.
Dr Mwakyembe, who was speaking on behalf of the Vice-President, challenged local election observers – Tanzania Election Monitoring Committee (TEMCO) and The Tanzania Civil Society Consortium on Election Observation (TACCEO) – to cross borders and monitor polls in other countries.
“You should start to organise your institutions to observe elections abroad, outside the zone of East Africa and Southern Africa and possibly even outside Africa,” he said. He noted that by so doing, they would be in a position to learn how other countries conduct elections.
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