At least seven letters, written by the Civic United Front (CUF) to various institutions protesting the way the voter registration exercise is being handled in the Isles, have not been answered, the opposition party is saying.
One of the letters was written two months ago by the CUF national chairman, Prof Ibrahim Lipumba, addressed to President Jakaya Kikwete.
In he letter to the President, the CUF leader alerted the Head of State of "discrepancies in voter registration exercise", asking Mr Kikwete to take the necessary steps to avert any unnecessary confrontations.
Another letter, which dwelt on the similar issue, was addressed to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
The CUF director of foreign affairs and international cooperation, Mr Ismail Jussa, told The Citizen yesterday that the letter to UNDP was followed by a visit the party's Members of House of Representatives led Mr Abubakary Khamis Bakary.
He said CUF also wrote to the office of the director of Zanzibar Identification Cards (Zan ID), on what the party saw as irregularities on the issuance of the vital document.
But it was to the office of the Zanzibar Electoral Commission (ZEC) that CUF says it sent many letters in recent days - at least five.
Mr Jussa said some of the letters addressed to ZEC got replies, "but their answers did not provide any solutions to the problems that we raised."
"We did this as part of our role as stakeholders in the electoral Zanzibar process; there are certain matters in which we cannot go beyond giving advice. We have fulfilled our responsibility," said Mr Jussa.
He further explained that the management of the electoral process was the responsibility of the relevant government organs and as such, these organs should bear the blame in the event of things going wrong.
"Because we don't want things to go wrong, we have been advising the relevant organs frequently on what we think should be done to make the exercise smooth so that the elections can be seen as free and fair, but in most cases our advice has been ignored," he said citing unanswered the letters.
The CUF concerns are being raised at a time when voters� registration in Zanzibar is set to resume next Saturday in Pemba and Unguja.
ZEC announced yesterday that the exercise would restart next week, almost a month after it was suspended following unprecedented chaos over the controversial issuance of Zanzibar IDs.
Addressing reporters in Zanzibar yesterday, ZEC chairman, Mr Khatib Mwinyichande said the rumours that ZEC has been forced to resume the exercise were baseless because, he stressed, the decision was reached after an assessment by the commission indicated that the situation has improved and it was okay to resume the exercise.
He said the exercise would resume in both Pemba and Unguja on the same day, contrary to the earlier system in which the registration was conducted on the Pemba side only.
He asked political parties and other stakeholders to cooperate in the exercise to update the permanent voter register.
Mr Mwinyichande said the exercise would resume in North Pemba�s Ole constituency where it had been suspended on August 4, and also in North Unguja island.
He said in the interim period since the postponement, authorities have been looking into ways of dealing with the problems that were highlighted when the exercise started in Pemba.
�It is my hope that this time around the registration will be done without any hitch,� he said.
But CUF is seemingly not comfortable and has warned of more violence unless �solutions are first found for the underlying problems that forced ZEC to suspend the registration exercise in the first place.�
Arguing that nothing concrete has been done to address the erstwhile problems, Mr Jussa said ZEC and other players should expect more trouble.
�If the no solutions have been found for the shortcomings which led to the suspension of the registration, we should brace ourselves for more chaos,� he said, noting that the concerns that make countries like US nervous and issue travel advisory to their citizens are still there. The US last week advised American citizens against visiting Pemba.
Commenting on the US reaction to Zanzibar minister�s remarks that Americans have a hidden agenda against the Isles, Mr Jussa said the government officials had themselves to blame for the Isles negative image.
He said that statements such as those made by a Zanzibar minister suggesting that there were terrorist activities in Pemba, were the ones that raise an alarm in the international community.
"Ministers should stop shaming this country. How can a minister issue a statement indicating there are terrorist activities in Pemba? What do you expect foreigners to react after such a remark?" he asked.
There has been a hot debate over the recent US travel advisory, warning its citizen against visiting Pemba, with a Zanzibar state Minister, Hamsa Hassan Juma, saying the superpower has a hidden agenda against Zanzibar.
US reacted quickly by saying other than wishing to see improvement in the political situation in Zanzibar, Americans have no other agenda on the Clove Islands.
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