Tanzania has cancelled independence day celebrations next month, after calls for protests over mass killings during recent contested polls, Prime Minister Mwigulu Nchemba said on Monday.<\/p>\n
The funds meant for the event on 9 December should instead be spent on rebuilding infrastructure damaged\u00a0in last month\u2019s election unrest.<\/p>\n
This announcement comes as the opposition and others have been calling for people to gather on independence day to protest the killings that took place after the disputed general election on 29 October.<\/p>\n
President Samia Suluhu Hassan won the poll with 98% of the vote but opposition parties rejected the results as\u00a0\u201ccompletely fabricated\u201d and not \u201cgenuine.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hassan’s main rivals were also either jailed or disqualified.\u00a0Chadema leader Tundu Lissu\u00a0has been in detention on treason charges since April while\u00a0ACT-Wazalendo’s Luhaga Mpina\u00a0saw his candidacy rejected on technical grounds.<\/p>\n
Thousands of people took to the streets to denounce the election. Tanzanian authorities cracked down on protesters,\u00a0in a move rights groups denounced as “violent” and “repressive.”<\/p>\n
The opposition believes\u00a0hundreds of people were killed\u00a0during the protests.<\/p>\n
The government has yet to give a death toll and has set up\u00a0a commission of inquiry\u00a0but opposition parties have expressed concern over the independence of this body.<\/p>\n
On Monday, Nchemba also called for Tanzanians to avoid violence and engage in political dialogue.<\/p>\n
“I urge my fellow Tanzanians to come together and discuss the issues affecting us. Let us not return to what we went through, because the consequences are irreparable,”\u00a0he said.<\/p>\n
Tanzania has cancelled independence day celebrations next month, after calls for protests over mass killings during recent contested polls, Prime Minister Mwigulu Nchemba said on Monday. The funds meant for the event on 9 December should instead be spent on rebuilding infrastructure damaged\u00a0in last month\u2019s election unrest. This announcement comes as the opposition and others […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12554,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"BBC","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,2362,33],"tags":[4617,505,131],"class_list":["post-18703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-east-africa","category-featured","category-politics","tag-mwigulu-nchemba","tag-samia-suluhu-hassan","tag-tanzania"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18703"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18703\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}