Event reports
The objective of this second event under the slogan "Your Voice, Your Choice - Rights and Duties of Youths During the Upcoming Elections" was to prepare more students for the upcoming nationwide local elections on 14 December 2014. Considering the fact that many of the young people will be first time voters, another objective was to inform them about the procedure of voter registration, also in the light of the National Elections in 2015.
More than 400 students from Mtwara attended the event which was held in the auditorium of the Stella Maris Mtwara University College. The presenters were Mr. Denis Bandisa from the Prime Minister's Office (PMO-RALG), Mr. Salvatory Alute and Mr. Adolph Kinyero from the National Election Commission (NEC), Mr. Augustino Mligo from the Stella Maris Mtwara University College. The District Commissioner of Mtwara, Wilman Kapenjama officiated the event as guest of honour.
The symposium began with an introductory speech by KAS Programme Coordinator Richard Shaba. He pointed out to the importance of young voters in a democracy stating "independent and enlightened voters are the base of every democracy". Mr. Shaba took the opportunity to shortly introduce the principles and work of KAS Tanzania, emphasizing the long-standing collaboration with Tanzania which began already in 1964. Afterwards, the Executive Secretary of CETA, Mr. Minja Safari, welcomed the students and presented CETA's work in the field of political education of pupils and students and emphasized that especially the young generation needs to catch up in participating in politics, democracy and elections. That is the reason why CETA puts a lot of effort and work in the education of young voters. In addition, Mr. Minja thanked KAS for the good long-term cooperation and support. In his welcome note, the Deputy Chairman of the Stella Maris Mtwara University College hold emphasized that the young students should use this opportunity to ask questions directly to the responsible persons from NEC and PMO to receive first-hand information.
The first presentation of the day where held by Mr. Alute from the National Electoral Commission (NEC) on the subject of Voter Education. According to Alute, NEC was founded in 1993 and has 120 permanent staff members. The electoral management body consists of seven members, who are all appointed by the President of the country. Their functions are to supervise and coordinate the registration of voters, supervise and coordinate the presidential, parliamentary and local council elections, to publish information regarding the elections and electoral results and the education of voters. In his presentation, Alute further explained the functions and duties of NEC in its current form and compared them to the form and structure as proposed in the draft for the new constitution. At the end of his presentation, he highlighted the big task lying in front of NEC: Approximately 22 million voters have to be registered for the upcoming elections; for registration, the new BVR-Kits should be used. Alute strongly encouraged the young students to inform themselves about and to prepare for the upcoming elections and the registration process.
Mr. Adolph Kinyero, Computer Analyst from NEC gave the next presentation on voter registration in which he provided the basic information of the BVR, saying it was geared to improve the efficiency of the registration process. During his presentation, he showed a video about the whole registration process and explained every single part of the BVR-kit. He reasoned the use of the new kit, among others, by the issue that the former used Polaroid Camera can not be used anymore because of health reasons. Further, he made clear that in contrast to the procedures in countries like Nigeria or Kenya, where problems with the electronical voting systems occurred, in Tanzania the BVR would only be used to register voters not to count votes electronically. One big advantage of BVR was the speed of registration: The biometric registration takes only 3 minutes per person.
Another short speech was given by the District Commissioner of Mtwara Wilman Kapenjama. He thanked CETA and KAS for organizing such an event and emphasized that there should be more of these events in the future to elucidate the sensible topic of voter education to the students. After the first round of presentations, there was the opportunity for the pupils and students to express their questions, suggestions and opinions on the presentations. The speakers responded tirelessly to clarify misunderstandings and to resolve any existing reservations. There was a great interest of young guests, whereby an extensive discussion on the topics of a free, fair and independent democracy, a transparent electoral process and voter registration was initiated. A lunch break supplied the guests with necessary energy for the second half of the symposium.
Mr. Denis Bandisa from the PMO held the next presentation. Bandisa explained the basic functions of the local government: To promote the political, administrative and fiscal decentralization and to involve the population in the political process at the local level. The local elections determine the chairpersons of the village, the members of the village council and the chairpersons in Hamlet and Town Authorities. On contrary to that, the city councils are determined in the national elections.
Afterwards, the last presentation of the day was held by Augustino Mligo, a lecturer of the Stella Maris Mtwara University College on Local Government Procedures. In his presentation he mentioned the importance of elections and explained that every democratic government depends on an interested and participating population. Only well conducted and transparent elections at all levels will lead to socio-economic growth, good governance and sustainable development. Precisely for this reason the participation of the population in elections is so important. Especially the younger voters were still represented too weakly in the past elections and many youths seem to be thinking that elections in Tanzania are only for adults and the elderly. Exactly those young people have to be involved more in the policy-making process. For that reason it is important that the young generation wakes up and takes part in political process of today.
Following the presentations, the moderator Festo Gabriel summarized the contents and conclusions of the presentations and the guests had the opportunity to contribute their ideas and questions within another round of Q&A, followed by a vivid discussion.
The entire day was very informative and enlightening for all people who took part. The participants could receive first-hand information and the representatives from the government bodies NEC and PMO-RALG answered even very critical questions calmly and extensively. Due to the cooperation with CETA, a large number of students were reached and conclusions and the presentations will be published in a booklet soon. Immediately after the event, all actors involved met for a follow-up and feedback discussion. Everybody was very satisfied with the whole event and a continuation of the events on voter education to supply even more students with detailed information on this sensible topic of “voter education” was agreed on.
This time was the first time that the KAS team handed out evaluation questionnaires: A small quiz consisting of ten simple questions was distributed to a test group of 50 students before the event started. The volunteers were given 15 minutes to answer questions like “What does BVR stand for?”. After the event the same 50 students received the same questions again and answered them a second time. Thanks to this, KAS will be able to assess the knowledge of students before and after the event and in so doing gets information on how effective these events are. The students were very interested and dedicated in filling in the questionnaire and the whole evaluation was very helpful and informative for KAS and CETA to improve the next events. We would like to once again thank everybody who participated in the quiz!