Sylvester Masinde versus Pius Msekwa and A.G; Civil Appeal No 57 of 1997; Court of Appeal of Tanzania at Dar es Salaam(Unreported).
- Election Petition
- Campaigns – Election Campaign exploit religious differences – Effect.
- Voting – some voters prevented from voting – which principle applies to judge whether results were affected.
- Constitutional Law
- Speaker of the National Assembly- when does he/she ceases to hold the position?
Held:-
(i) Where election campaign exploits religious differences the election results can be avoided.
(ii) A person once elected to be the Speaker continues under normal circumstances to be the Speaker not only throughout the life of parliament but until a new parliament meets after general elections.
(iii) The rule permitting adjustment of votes in favour of the losing candidate is no longer good law under the multi-party electoral system where more than two candidates sponsored more than one political party do contest elections.The correct approach under the multi-party system is to make a pro rata apportionment of the estimated votes between the contesting candidates. If the outcome of such exercise eliminates or considerably reduces the margin of victory the court may hold the election result was affected.