NGOs challenge election law on hospitality

Three NGOs in Tanzania have gone to court to challenge provisions in the country's election law that allow contestants to offer hospitality to constituents during campaigns. "We have filed an application seeking to have the High Court declare the electoral law that provides for such offers unconstitutional," Hellen Kijo-Bisimba, the director of the Legal Human Rights Centre, told IRIN on Friday. The other NGOs that have jointly filed the application are the Lawyers' Environmental Action Team and the National Organisation for Legal Assistance. The NGOs said the provisions allowing such gratuities, commonly known in Tanzania as "Takrima" (Swahili language for hospitality), were "repugnant to justice - offensive because they encourage corruption in the electoral process". "The provisions are overtly against constitutional provisions that outlaw discrimination," the NGOs said in their suit. General elections are scheduled for October. The NGOs said such "corrupt" practices would adversely affect the conduct of fair and free elections in the country. However, these provisions are silent on the form, amount and duration of the hospitality to be provided to the electorate. Tanzania's Elections Act of 1985 was amended in 2000, where hospitality was allowed during election campaigns on grounds that it was part of African traditions. Kijo-Bisimba told IRIN that since 2000, it had emerged that only those with economic ability were capable of influencing voters through hospitality and practices such as providing food to people during election campaigns. "Article 13(2) of the Constitution of the United Republic of Tanzania of 1977 prohibits the enactment of any law that, directly or by implication, discriminates citizens of Tanzania," she said.