Permanent voters register: Over 400,000 expected
to be enrolled in Municipality, Arumeru
By Nyamanoko Bwire
A total of, 420,753 people are expected to be enrolled in the recently
established, permanent National voters' register, in both Arusha municipality
and the Arumeru district, by the end of the exercise on Wednesday, March 11 this
year, ready for the forthcoming General Elections.
The Returning Officer for the Municipality, Noah Mwaikuka said last week that,
Arusha town is set to enroll 163,131 people and the exercise which commences on
Saturday, the 19th of February, is being carried out in 119 registration
stations.
The Municipality comprising 17 wards, accounts for the Arusha Urban Electoral
area which elects one Parliamentary representative.
In Arumeru, a total of 257, 622 people are expected to be enlisted in the
permanent voters= register and according to the District Returning Officer,
Raphael Mbunda, the exercise to enroll the potential voters, is being carried
out in 295 different stations.
The District, with a total of 37 wards, is divided into two Electoral
constitutions namely; Arumeru East and Arumeru West, each set to elect its own
Member of Parliament.
All these local registration stations, according to both Returning Officers,
have been marked out by the National Electoral Commission. This exercise to
enroll voters in the permanent register, for the Northern Zone regions is being
carried out from the 19th of February to 11th of March 2005.
According to the 2002 National Population and Housing Census, Arusha
Municipality is inhabited by a total of 281,608 people, while Arumeru District
has an estimated population of 516, 814. In Tanzania, a person is considered to
be eligible to vote when He or She is a citizen of the age of 18 and above.
In order to facilitate the registration exercise, both Arumeru and the Arusha
Municipality have been conducting training courses for the people recruited to
perform the task and so far, a total of 1280 recruits have been trained for the
exercise in 37 wards of the Arumeru district alone.
As far as the Municipality is concerned, Returning Officer, Mr. Mwaikuka said
the exercise would mainly be conducted by Primary School teachers and equipment
needed to facilitate the task have already been delivered here.
Thousands of people, mostly youths applied for jobs at the council, when it was
recently announced that, recruits will be needed to conduct the registration
exercise in the Municipality.
This was followed by dismay when it became apparent that the council officials
were intending to ignore the applications in favor of the Teaching crew, most of
whom hardly applied in the first place.
The 21 -day long, voters enrollment exercise includes; the actual registration
of individuals and photo taking for the required pictures that are to be used
for both the permanent register and on the Voters Identity Cards, that are to be
issued.
The Tanzanian fourth multiparty general elections, are set to be conducted on
Sunday, the 30th of October this year. The campaigns leading to the GE have been
set to kick off on the 22nd of August.
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