Voters Register for updating in January

Justice Lewis M. Makame
Chairman

The National Electoral Commission has announced that it will start updating the Permanent National Voters` Register in January next year.

In a statement made available to the media yesterday, it said the exercise would be conducted at zonal level, starting with the Southern one.

The exercise will see the commission register all those eligible to take part in elections as voters, issuing them with the relevant identity cards.

These are those who will have attained the age of 18 and above but were not covered when the register was established in 2004/2005.

The commission would also transfer information on people who have since shifted from the areas they inhabited when they were registered in 2004/2005. That would go alongside deleting the names of those who have since died and those who, according to the law, are no longer eligible voters.

Section 15(1) of Election Law No. 1 of 1985 and Section 21(1) of Local Governments Election Law No. 4 of 1979 give the commission powers to update the register, according to the statement.

It added that the laws governing elections in Tanzania also stipulate that it is the commission�s responsibility to set the time for conducting the exercise in every ward in local authorities and constituencies throughout the country.

To facilitate its work, the commission has divided Tanzania mainland into six zones, the Southern zone comprising Lindi and Mtwara regions and the Central one that combines Dodoma, Kigoma, Singida and Tabora regions.

Other zones, with the respective regions in brackets, are: Coastal (Coast, Dar es Salaam and Morogoro), Lake (Kagera, Mara, Mwanza and Shinyanga), Northern (Arusha, Kilimanjaro, Manyara and Tanga), and Southern Highlands (Iringa, Mbeya, Rukwa and Ruvuma).

The commission has explained that the register would be updated twice every five years, the next such exercise coming just a year before the coming General Elections in 2010.