Bilal Abdul-Aziz
The National Electoral Commission (NEC) announced yesterday it would spend nearly 70bn/- in updating the Permanent Voters Register (PVR) and additional 64bn/- in organizing the 2010 General Election.
On the election law, he said NEC was, among other things, seeking to push for the changing of the law allowing presidential and running mates to pull out from elections to avoid unnecessary inconveniencies and embarrassments.
Kiravu said the commission was still considering various options for subdividing some constituencies and results would be made public in future.
We are still consulting various stakeholders and final results will be released when we are done with it, he said, adding that the exercise is done routinely after a period of 10 years. The last time NEC subdivided constituencies was in 1995.
He explained that one of the important criteria under consideration was the size of the parliamentary debating chamber in the countrys designated capital, Dodoma. Any plan to add more constituencies should take into consideration the ability of the chamber to accommodate more lawmakers, Kiravu reminded.
Another criterion, he said, was the government commitment to increased women representation in accordance with the Southern African Development Community (SADC) protocol requiring signatories to ensure 50 per cent women representation in key decision-making bodies, including the Parliament.
He said NEC would not rush into subdividing the constituencies until it gets the exact position of the government on the matter for it to make clear calculations on the number of special seats and thereby determine the number of seats to be added.
Responding to a question on media endorsement of certain presidential candidates, he said with exception of state-owned media, which NEC is required to ensure give all candidates equal opportunity in their coverage, other media are free to endorse candidates of their choice.
THE GUARDIAN