Police, opposition clash as Zanzibaris await poll results

Several areas of Zanzibar's historic Stone Town were deserted early Tuesday as businesses remained shut and the police and supporters of the opposition Civic United Front (CUF) engaged in street battles. Police fired tear gas and water cannons to disperse hundreds of CUF supporters from Stone Town's Darajani area, site of the party's headquarters. The CUF supporters lit fires on the roads and stoned the police to stop them from entering the narrow maze of streets in which they were barricaded. "We want peace, we want democracy, Amani [Karume, Zanzibar's president] is a dictator. CCM [ruling party, Chama Cha Mapinduzi] wants to steal the election for a third time, we will not agree," a CUF supporter told IRIN. Several CUF supporters have been injured and several others arrested since clashes with the police began on Monday. By the afternoon, police had arrested 60, the director of criminal investigations, Ramadhani Kinyogo, said. In Tanzania's commercial capital, Dar es Salaam, there were reports that police fired tear gas to disperse hundreds of CUF supporters, who demonstrated afternoon against alleged electoral fraud. CCM and CUF continued to accuse each other of perpetrating acts of violence against members of the public. "Seif Sharif [Hamad, CUF presidential candidate] mobilised his supporters in the guise of celebrating an election he has not won," Saleh Ferouz, CCM deputy secretary-general, told reporters on Monday. "This act was clearly intended to instigate violence, for young male CUF supporters started throwing stones and rioting in Stone Town," he added. Rejecting this assertion, CUF's candidate for the Union presidency, Ibrahim Lipumba, said: "We have told our supporters to be calm, to be patient, but they are being provoked by police using tear gas on them." With results from most constituencies in, the Zanzibar Electoral Commission declared on Tuesday that CCM had won 27 of the 50 directly elected parliamentary seats, compared to CUF's 19. However, CUF announced early Tuesday that its calculations show that Hamad had won the presidential election by 50.63 percent to Karume's 49.37 percent. This was the semi-autonomous island's third election since the introduction of multiparty politics to Tanzania in 1992. Elections in 1995 and 2000 were characterised by election violence in which scores of people were killed. The island merged with mainland state of Tanganyika to form Tanzania in 1964, shortly after gaining independence from the Sultanate of Oman. Final election results are expected to be announced late Tuesday.