The exercise will involve a team of 180 long term members and another 6,400 short term election observers to be posted in various polling stations in the country during referendum day.
Speaking to reporters in Dar es Salaam yesterday at the University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM) the Co-Chairman of TEMCO Dr Benson Banna said his committee accredited to the National Electoral Commission (NEC) will observe post referendum developments in all the regions in the country.
Dr Banna said TEMCO will also observe the general election slated for October this year with 118 long term observers and 7,000 short term observers to monitor the entire electoral cycle.
According to him, the observation will also include intra-political parties’ nominations of candidates for presidential, parliamentary and local council’s posts in sampled constituencies on Mainland and Zanzibar.
“We have decided to take such a role because this is a component that is mostly overlooked by most election observers. This programme will assess the degree of credibility, transparency, freeness and fairness as well as the quality and integrity for this years’ general election” he said.
TEMCO observers will specifically pay attention to the legal and institutional framework, intraparty nomination process, efficacy of election management bodies, enforcement of election expenses act and nomination of candidate, he said.
The areas on focus include campaigns, gender aspect; media conduct, referendum and election day activities that include voting and votes counting.
Others will include results aggregates, declaration of results and the ensuing of post-election episodes as well as complaints and appeal handling mechanism.
The don however noted that observers will also be exposed to their code of ethics issued by NEC and Zanzibar Election Commission (ZEC).
“Their report will be published in newsletters and distributed to election management bodies, political parties, government institutions and other stakeholders.
The Interim assessment reports for the voters’ registration process, constitutional referendum and general election will be made public in both Swahili and English languages” he said.
TEMCO has been supported by the United State Agency for International Development (USAID) to handle the exercise.
It was formed in 1994 and has so far monitored five general elections since 1995. Currently, it has 162 members consisting of civil society, organisations that include Tanzania National Muslim Council (BAKWATA), Tanzania Episcopal Conference (TEC) and the Christian Council of Tanzania (CCT).
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