Amani Abeid Karume winner of Zanzibar presidential poll

Zanzibar's Electoral Commission (ZEC) declared Amani Abeid Karume on Tuesday as the winner of Sunday's presidential polls held amid tension and violence. ZEC Chairman Masauni Yussuf Masauni said at a news conference in the Zanzibari capital, Stone Town, that Karume, the incumbent, won 53.2 percent of the vote while his strongest rival, Seif Sharif Hamad of the Civic United Front (CUF), got 46.1 percent. However, earlier on Tuesday CUF said according to its calculations Hamad had won the election with 50.63 percent to Karume's 49.37 percent. The elections have been highly charged with reports of demonstrations by CUF supporters on the island of Pemba. The CUF's Directorate of Information and Policy Dissemination claimed on Tuesday that the Magereza (Prisons Brigade) was searching homes in Wete Pemba and "intimidating people". "They have already killed one person, Dande Seif Haji, at his house in Bopwe Mtemani," the directorate said in a statement. The information could not immediately be verified. [TANZANIA: Police, opposition clash as Zanzibaris await poll results] [TANZANIA: Mixed signals from observers on conduct of Zanzibar poll]