The Media Council of Tanzania (MCT) has released results of a survey of coverage of last year’s general election campaigns in terms of quality and abiding with professional standards.
MCT Executive Secretary Kajubi Mukajanga was speaking with The Guardian on Sunday after a high level debate on ‘Medias and Elections: a Multifaceted Relationship’ held on Thursday and organised by the French Embassy in Dar es Salaam.
Mukajanga said the election which was powerful and highly contested, received high quality and standard coverage compared to previous elections.
He underscored the need for conventional media to enhance coverage improvement especially given new challenges from the social media, noting that traditional media have to opt for new methodologies to meet the competition.
“We have a problem in reporting because most of our coverage lacks multiple sources and perspectives. It is high time media outlets switched to in-depth reporting,” he cautioned.
A communication expert, Maria Sarungi Tsehai who was among the event’s main speakers said most reported news in newspapers and electronic media were by and large of in-depth character.
She said the rising presence of social media outlets poses great challenges to the traditional media, whereas it now has to do an extra job to strike a balance with social media inputs.
In election periods people access information first through major social media outlets, not relying on newspapers.
“Last year’s elections were unique…social media was powerful as people could rely on it for information,” she said.
A journalist, Haby Niakaté from France said it is important for people to vote since by so doing they participate in political decision making. She said people who vote have their reasons and expect something from the leaders so elected.
The country’s general election of October 2015 was the fifth since the introduction of the multi-party system in 1992. Voters elected the president, members of Parliament and local government councilors.
On October 29th the National Electoral Commission (NEC) declared CCM candidate Dr John Pombe Joseph Magufuli winner of the presidential election.
He collected 58.46 per cent of the votes against the opposition’s Edward Lowassa (Chadema) who came second with 39.97 per cent of the vote.
Magufuli received 8,882,935 million votes to Lowassa's 6,072,848.
Besides the two presidential contestants, others were Anna Mghwira of ACT who got 98, 763 votes, Chief Rutalosa Lyemba of ADC (66, 049 votes), Chauma’s Hashimu Rungwe (49, 256 votes), Janken Kasambala of NRA (8,021 votes), Macmillan Lyimo of TLP (8, 198 votes) and Fahmi Dovutwa of UPDP who obtained 7,785 votes.
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