Tanzania's ruling party says Zanzibar vote results will stand

ZANZIBAR, Tanzania (Reuters) -- Tanzania's ruling party said on Thursday it fully expects to win a partial re-run of last Sunday's elections on Zanzibar, saying the result would stand regardless of internal or international criticism.

"We need to finish with this," said Mohammed Ramja, a senior party official in Zanzibar. "As long as Zanzibar is governable, those elected should govern and we expect to be named winners next week."

President Benjamin Mkapa and his ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) party are heading for a landslide general election victory in Tanzania as a whole after Sunday's elections, but allegations of massive vote rigging on the semi-autonomous islands of Zanzibar have marred the poll.

An unofficial tally maintained by the state-owned Daily News newspaper shows the CCM winning 166 of the first 175 parliamentary seats around Tanzania to report results from Sunday's vote.

But after a chaotic election in Zanzibar, the electoral commission has ordered a re-run this Sunday in 16 of the islands' 50 constituencies, a proposal rejected by the main opposition Civic United Front (CUF).

The CUF, which it claims it was cheated out of the last elections in Zanzibar in 1995, has called for the process to be started again from scratch on the spice islands, and says it will boycott Sunday's partial re-vote.

Its national presidential candidate Ibrahim Lipumba, who was expected to come second to Mkapa in the country as whole but beat him in Zanzibar, said on Thursday he would not recognise the results of the presidential race.

"If all elections are not repeated in Zanzibar I will not recognise the result," he told a news conference. "He (Mkapa) will have to use other channels to rule the people of Zanzibar -- like force."

Independent observer groups from the Commonwealth, United States and Organisation of African Unity have been united in their condemnation of the Zanzibar polls.

They back the CUF's demand that the Zanzibar polls be held again and say they will not participate in Sunday's partial repeat.

"There is no point," a member of the Commonwealth team told Reuters. "We are leaving. They may as well announce the result now as it seems to be a foregone conclusion."

They are also concerned at the real possibility of violence -- both on election day and when the results are announced -- and tension is certainly rising on the islands.

CUF officials said a group of CCM youth wingers -- watched by police -- had beaten up some party officials late on Wednesday in the historic Stonetown of Zanzibar.

On Monday, riot police fired on CUF activists in the area and dragged at least 15 people from shops, battering them with truncheons and rifle butts.

On Wednesday, police arrested a local reporter for the British Broadcasting Corporation, Ally Saleh. Saleh, who also works occasionally for Reuters, was charged with kidnapping and indecent assault, although he was released on bail on Thursday.

International donors froze aid to Zanzibar after the 1995 elections, but not to Tanzania as a whole where Mkapa's economic reform efforts have enjoyed significant Western support.

It is not clear how the West will react to the latest events in Zanzibar, but many diplomats are angry and dismayed.

The CCM in Zanzibar says it does not care what outsiders think and that an international lack of respect for Tanzania was something the government could live with.

"Forming a government is one thing, respect is something else," Ramja told reporters. "We are used to it. There won't be anything new."

That may not be the view of Mkapa's government in Dar es Salaam. He travelled to Zanzibar on Thursday for a meeting of CCM's central committee that analysts said could be explosive.

"I think Mkapa is really not very happy with the Zanzibar situation," a senior party aide told Reuters. "There is a definite rift between the CCM in Tanzania and the CCM in Zanzibar."

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