Zanzibar: Election dates and timetables

Extracted from: Grant Masterson 2009 "Chapter 13: Tanzania and Zanzibar" IN Denis Kadima and Susan Booysen (eds) Compendium of Elections in Southern Africa 1989-2009: 20 Years of Multiparty Democracy, EISA, Johannesburg, 524.

The ZEC was formed in 1993 after revisions to the Zanzibar Constitution of 1984 (Revised Act 5 of 1992) created the legal structures for the body. Once the body was constituted, it announced at a meeting of all political parties contesting the elections (the same parties which were registered on the mainland), that the first multiparty elections in Zanzibar since 1963 would take place on 22 October 1995, seven days before the Union elections would take place. The ZEC created four committees to oversee the arrangements for the 1995 elections, including a (ZEC 1996, 11):

committee for legal matters;
;committee on election materials and logistics;
;committee for voter education; and
committee for security matters.

In 2000, a joint decision was taken by the NEC and ZEC to coordinate their elections dates and hold joint elections in Zanzibar for both the Union and Zanzibar tickets. A joint election date, 29 October 2000, was therefore announced by both commissions The ZEC also announced that the campaign period would run from 22 August to 28 October 2000, with registration of voters taking place between 8 August and 21 August 2000.

For the 2005 elections, a similar arrangement of coordinating the date between Union and Zanzibar elections was originally announced: 30 October 2005. However, once the Union elections were postponed due to the death of a candidate, the ZEC opted to proceed with the Zanzibar elections regardless, as the vice-presidential candidate was standing on the Union presidency ticket, and therefore did not affect the ZEC's elections in any way.

Reference

ZANZIBAR ELECTORAL COMMISSION (ZEC) 1996 Zanzibar Electoral Commission's Report for the General Election of the 22nd October 1995.