IFES Practitioner Brief on Alternative Dispute Resolution in Elections Tanzania This case study shows how a positive ADR initiative at the district and central levels was used to remedy the lack of an accessible EDR process before the EMB and the judiciary. It also shows that, without proper rules, training, voter education, and transparency, this mechanism will likely provide inconsistent outcomes and will not gain stakeholders’ trust. The National Election Commission (NEC) establishes an ethics committee in each district and at the national level to resolve complaints about violations of the code of conduct using ADR techniques. The committees are made up of NEC officials and representatives from political parties and the government. The Returning Officer leads this ADR mechanism, and there is no cost attached to the filing of disputes. In 2015, the EU Election Observation Mission noted that the committees achieved some success in resolving minor disputes, but other disputes bypassed them and were resolved through direct negotiation between the parties. 159 The introduction of ADR in Tanzania was welcomed, notably due to limitations on bringing a challenge to court to address election disputes. This experience was repeated in the 2020 elections. 160 Electoral stakeholders noted shortcomings in the ADR process in 2020, in particular that the Electoral Code of Conduct did not provide sufficient guidance on the composition or procedures of the ethics committees, or a clear mandate for their work. There was no detailed process for hearings. IFES was not able to obtain information on guidelines or training programs designed by NEC for the ethics committees. A legal NGO attempted to support drafting of rules, but this initiative did not succeed. While the Code of Conduct should have limited the authority of Ethics Committees to campaign issues or pre-election disputes, parties and candidates reported that the committees also addressed issues related to candidate nomination. The lack of rules can undermine the consistency and fairness of the ADR process and blur the lines between ADR and EDR processes. In the 2020 elections, based on our interviews, stakeholders noted that ethics committees were not considered effective, particularly at the district level. However, they demonstrated some effectiveness at the central level, with the National Ethics Committee providing remedies to 67 of 98 primarily opposition candidates whose nominations were rejected by returning officers. 161 The nominations of hundreds of other would-be candidates were rejected, but only a few filed with the ethics committees. Because the ethics committees’ recordkeeping has been patchy, the process lacks transparency and data about the composition of the committees is limited—in particular, how many opposition politicians were members (the numbers are thought to be very low) and the type and nature of disputes that the committees have resolved. 162 The lack of transparency was not specific to the ethics committees but applied to the overall election process. European Union election observation mission final report: United Republic of Tanzania – General Elections. 2015. (2015). https://www.eods.eu/library/eu-eom-tz-2015-fr_en.pdf 160 In Tanzania, interviewees noted that only four cases were filed with the judiciary in the 2020 elections. 161 National Electoral Commission. Report on the 2020 presidential, parliamentary, and counselors’ elections. (2021). https://www.nec.go.tz/uploads/documents/en/1630322400-GENERAL%20ELECTION%202020%20REPORT.pdf 162 In its 2020 election report, the NEC did not mention the work of the ethics committees or number of appeals (the only number quoted was for the national ethics committee—164 appeals, mainly about exclusion of candidate nomination). This report seems to indicate that the NEC did not collect information from the ethics committees at the district level. 159 63