Uchaguzi live in action at iHub in Nairobi

 

Tanzanians are voting today, 31 October 2010 to elect the President of the United Republic of Tanzania, President of Zanzibar, Members of Parliament and Members of the Zanzibar House of Representatives.

Through the Uchaguzi platform civil society monitors the elections in a cooperation between citizens, election monitors, Tanzanian NGOs and a team based in Nairobi.

Have here a quick look behind the scenes of the Uchaguzi from the situation room in Nairobi around 10 this morning. Some volunteers have been here since yesterday, and more are coming in, in fact now the number has already doubled from the time of recording. 

Basically, there are two situation rooms in Dar es Salaam - the Legal Human Rights Centre, and the Bagamoyo University (office in Dar es Salaam) where Friends of Education and HakiElimu are operating from (check the live report from one of the situation rooms in Tanzania here.) And then there is the one in Nairobi, supporting the two situation rooms in Tanzania.

Do also have a look at the on-line Situation Room for the Tanzanian elections here. 

Personally, I am here to learn how crowd-sourching works practically - hoping to understand the processes behind the updates here. In particular, I am curious on understanding how civil society benefits from using a tool like Uchagzu.

Follow more election updates on Twitter here: #uchaguzi, #TZelect and #uchaguzitz.

And go on for more updates here:

Uchaguzi Feeds from mainstream media

Global Voices

The Mikocheni Report

Labda Hata Mimi

Swahili Street