Dar es Salaam. Tanzania’s Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Director of Elections, Ramadhani Kailima, has stated that there has been no increase in the number of voters in the permanent voter register compared to the population projections based on the census, contrary to claims made by some individuals.
Speaking during a meeting between INEC and online content creators regarding the 2025 general elections held in Dar es Salaam on August 3, 2025, Kailima explained that Section 9(2) of the Presidential, Parliamentary and Councilor Elections Act gives the Commission the responsibility to register voters who have reached the age of 18 or will reach that age by the time of the election.
He mentioned that there have been reports circulating online claiming that the Commission has registered about seven million new voters, with these misleading reports suggesting that this number exceeds the estimated five million individuals who were projected by the census to be eligible to vote in 2025.
“The Commission’s data shows that around 3,113,931 individuals were eligible to be registered in 2015 and 2020 but were not, but they say they were registered. These individuals have now been registered. So, if you subtract this number from the roughly seven million new registrants, you’re left with just over four million truly new voters who have turned 18 or older. Therefore, we have not even reached the projected census numbers in that regard,” said Kailima.
The Commission announced that a total of 37,655,559 voters have registered in the permanent voter register for the 2025 elections, following a two-phase update exercise conducted from July 20, 2024, to March 25, 2025, and from May 1, 2025, to July 4, 2025.
According to the Commission, this number represents a 26.55 percent increase from about 29.7 million voters who were in the permanent register in the 2020 general election.
READ MORE: INEC Registers 37.6 Million Tanzanians for October Polls
On July 29, 2025, opposition party CHADEMA, which maintains a “No Reforms, No Election” stance, through its Director of Organization and Elections, John Pambalu, issued a public statement criticizing the Commission’s figures, claiming that the number of registered voters exceeds the estimates derived from the 2022 Population and Housing Census.
Kailima emphasized that the clarification was intended to inform the public and noted that the voter register, by law, is made public during every stage of its update. He stated that no one has come forward to challenge the list by identifying individuals who should not be in the register.
“Just recently, on July 27 [2025], the Commission provided the voter register to [18] political parties, and so far, not a single party has come forward to say that certain people listed are not real. Therefore, if you understand this well, you can help explain it better to the public. When they share their figures, ask them such questions — they won’t be able to mislead people again about the register,” Kailima concluded.
