1995 Tanzanian general election

General elections were held in Tanzania on 29 October.^[1] They were the first multi-party general elections after the lifting of the ban on political parties other than Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) in 1992. However, the results were declared null and void by the National Electoral Commission due to failures to provide ballots to many polling places.^[2] As a result, the elections were re-run on 29 November.

The CCM retained its control of the country, with its candidate Benjamin Mkapa winning the presidential election, and the party winning 186 of the 232 directly-elected seats in the National Assembly. Voter turnout was 77% of the 8,929,969 registered voters.

The National Assembly consisted of 232 directly-elected seats (182 on the mainland and 50 on Zanzibar), 37 seats for women MPs allocated based on the proportion constituency seats won, five members were elected by the House of Representatives of Zanzibar and ten members nominated by the President. The Attorney General was also an ex-officio member, resulting in a total of 285 MPs.

The election was characterized by irregularities.^[3]

In Zanzibar there was widespread allegations of vote-rigging, with the ruling CCM Zanzibar presidential candidate Salmin Amour being declared the victor by a margin of less than 1%. In protest, the losing candidate from the Zanzibar-based Civic United Front (CUF), Seif Shariff Hamad, refused to recognize Amour as president. The CUF boycotted the new government, resulting in 18 of their members being arrested and charged with treason. In June 1999 an agreement was reached between the CCM and the CUF, which led to an end of the CUF boycott.^[4]