A major opposition party in Zanzibar has accused security forces of shooting dead five citizens and arresting its leader amid rising tensions on the eve of elections in the semi-autonomous archipelago and mainland Tanzania.
The ACT-Wazalendo party said in a statement on Tuesday that those killed had been attempting to stop the army from distributing boxes on Monday that they suspected contained pre-ticked ballots. The party said nine other people were injured. Police said they had no information of any deaths.
“Information we have as of now is that five people are dead, they have been shot by law enforcers. Some of them were shot in their homes,” Salim Bimani, ACT-Wazalendo spokesman for the island of Pemba, told DPA news agency on Tuesday.
“This is continuation of election violence. It did not start yesterday or today,” he added.
The party also said its presidential candidate, Seif Sharif Hamad, was hauled away by police as he arrived at a polling station in Garagara neighbourhood to try and cast his ballot on a day of early voting set aside mainly for security forces.
A police official in Zanzibar city, Mohammed Hassan Haji, confirmed the arrest to The Associated Press news agency but gave no details.
The opposition believes the day of early voting is a ploy to steal the election on an island with a history of contested polls, and urged supporters to go out and vote on the same day.
Al Jazeera’s Catherine Soi, reporting from Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, said authorities argued Hamad had no reason to be at a polling station on Tuesday.
Source: aljazeera.com
The post Zanzibar: Opposition claims 5 killed, leader held ahead of polls appeared first on The Chronicle Online.
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