Members of the Policy Forum Local Government Working Group (LGWG) have proposed that local government elections that were slated for October this year should be postponed and coupled with the 2015 general elections.

Speaking at a press conference last week, Mr. Hebron Mwakagenda, the co-convener of the working group said that because there was a lot ambiguity about the upcoming LGA elections, caused mostly by delay in issuing the LGA guidelines for elections, the exercise should be held next year together with the national elections and in the meantime, stakeholders should use the time to review the guidelines.

“According to the procedures, the LGA guidelines for election should have been out by now but surprisingly they are not out yet. We heard from different media sources that there was a meeting held in Morogoro by PMORALG and political parties whereby they were reviewing the guidelines for local government elections. Surprisingly, we as CSOs were not invited and did not take part in this,” he lamented.

He gave examples from Kenya and Zimbabwe where LGA elections are combined with their national elections and therefore said that the Policy Forum Local Government Working Group concurs with the suggestion of President of Tanzania Dr. Jakaya Mrisho Khalfan Kikwete that it would be difficult to run two national processes concurrently and those are the LGA elections and the constitution writing.

The group further advised that PMORALG should not be the body to administer LGA elections since it is not aptly set up as an Electoral Management Body (EMB). Instead, they recommended LGA elections to be administered by the body with the mandate to deal with elections and that is the National Electoral Commission (NEC) who are better placed to guarantee free and credible elections.

To read the swahili statement click here