Political parties trade accusations over threat to mainlanders

The ruling party in Zanzibar and the main opposition party have continued to trade accusations over claims that mainlanders have been asked to leave the semi-autonomous archipelago in the lead up to the establishment of a permanent voter’s register. The ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) claims that supporters of the opposition Civic United Front (CUF) had verbally threatened and, more recently, distributed leaflets on the island in an attempt to scare off Tanzanians from the mainland so that they would not register to vote in the next elections, due in 2005. But CUF denied the claims, saying that they were part of an orchestrated propaganda campaign, carried out by the island's intelligence and security services, to discredit the opposition. Relations between the two parties have been turbulent in recent years following elections – in 1995 and 2000 – that were marred by allegations of vote rigging. Tension gave way to violence in January 2001 when the police shot at least 35 CUF supporters during demonstrations on the Zanzibari island of Pemba. The establishment of a permanent voter’s register is seen as a fundamental element of an agreement of reconciliation signed between the two parties in October 2001, known as Muafaka. CUF maintains that the CCM shipped in mainlanders to boost its vote on the islands, which are traditionally a CUF stronghold. A member of CCM’s central committee and the party’s treasurer on Zanzibar, Yusuf Hemid Mansour, told IRIN on Monday that they had been monitoring these activities for several months, but that they had escalated recently. "There have been threats issued against people who have roots on the mainland," he said. "Initially, these were issued verbally but now we have been seeing leaflets. Some people are scared and have since sold their plots, cattle and poultry. They are mostly from the north, south and central parts of the island." However, Mansour declined to give a figure of how many people had felt threatened enough to leave. "Our investigations have found those responsible to be CUF members," he said. "Zanzibar is a very small island and everyone knows who everyone is." But CUF Chairman Ibrahim Lipumba told IRIN on Monday that the CCM allegations were baseless. "This is propaganda that is being handed out by CCM as well as the intelligence and security services. All they are interested in doing is tarnishing the image of CUF," he said. He added: "Our position has been very clear. We have many members who have come from the mainland - our vice chairman is even from the Coast region [on mainland Tanzania]. We do not harass anyone from the mainland." Lipumba said that the party only wanted to make sure that only those eligible to vote – anyone who was born in Zanzibar and has spent three consecutive years there or anyone who has moved there, lived there for 10 years and has the appropriate documentation – could vote in the 2005 election. Mansour rejected that CCM could be involved pressurising Zanzibaris. "This is not something that CCM will never do," he said. But both leaders said that the disagreements should not affect the completion of the voter’s register, which is supposed to begin in April. A political scientist resident in the mainland city of Dar es Salaam, Michael Okema, said on Monday that on an island where politics was so polarised, and everything was being geared to the 2005 elections, both sides had vested interests in the establishment of the voters register and were, therefore, capable of using such tactics. But he said that CCM was in a "better position" to carry this out and, alongside a "tradition of underhandedness", had access to the state machinery. "They might be pre-empting CUF complaints that will arise if CCM brings people over from the mainland. They are trying to show that they [CUF] does not like mainlanders," he said. Despite the last few years of reconciliation and relative tranquillity, Okema said, politics on the islands remained volatile. "That is the general atmosphere there. We should not see this as degeneration, but a continuation," he said.