The National Electoral Commission in Tanzania announced that outgoing President John Magufuli won Friday night in the presidential elections that took place on Wednesday, receiving 84.39% of the vote, which angered The opposition, which called for a new ballot and called for demonstrations.
"The committee announces John Magufuli as the winner of the presidential election after receiving the majority of votes," said committee chair Simistocles Kaibag. The opposition had previously rejected the election results, saying that it witnessed widespread fraud.
Attorney Tendo Liso, 52, Magufuli´s main opponent and main opposition party candidate, won 13.03% of the vote.
The rest of the votes were divided among 13 other candidates.
Immediately after the results were announced, the opposition called on Saturday for its supporters to take to the streets to protest against the president´s re-election in a ballot it considers fraudulent, calling for new elections.
"We first call for new elections as soon as possible," Freeman Mboy, leader of the largest opposition party, the Democratic and Progress Party, known as Shadima, said in a press conference with another opposition party, the Alliance for Change and Transparency (Act-Wasalindo).
"We call for continuous and peaceful demonstrations in all parts of the country until our demands are met," he added.
Observers say that Tanzania, which has long been considered a model for stability in East Africa, is witnessing an increasing restriction on democracy and a suppression of freedom of expression under the rule of Magufuli of 60 years and his "Revolutionary Party" (Chama Cha Mapinduzi), which has been in power since 1961. Magufuli was elected president in The year 2015.
Observers expressed deep concern about the integrity of the elections in the period leading up to the vote, and violence broke out in the semi-autonomous Zanzibar on the eve of the polls, killing ten people, according to the opposition.
The rate of participation in the elections was 50.72%, while the number of voters reached 29.75 million.
The president’s party also won the vast majority of the 264 seats in the parliament during the legislative elections that accompanied the presidential poll, according to the latest results issued by the Electoral Commission.
Leso had previously rejected the results of the presidential and legislative elections on Thursday, saying that "what happened was not an election, and therefore we do not recognize it. We do not accept the results" that will be published. He believed that the operation witnessed "fraud unprecedented in our history."
