Zanzibar, Thursday
Zanzibar's defeated opposition said on Thursday it would not recognise the re-elected leader of the Tanzanian tourist islands, setting the scene for another protracted and potentially violent standoff.
As the Civic United Front (CUF) planned a protest strategy and the ruling party blamed it for this week's clashes, streets began to return to normal and tourists trickled back.
Already in power for four decades, the governing Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM or "Party of the Revolution") won another five-year term in Sunday's poll by a narrow margin of 32,099 votes on the semi-autonomous islands of 1 million people.
But CUF said CCM only won through fraud and intimidation.
Foreign observers have generally endorsed the poll, though there have been some calls for an inquiry, including from Washington. Its envoy to Tanzania was not seen at Zanzibar President Amani Abeid Karume's re-inauguration on Wednesday.
To critics, the CCM win sends an ugly message of unrepentant state power along much of Africa's Indian Ocean coast, where predominantly Muslim Swahili-speaking communities have long felt alienated by governments led by politicians from inland tribes.
"The results they gave were cooked up results. Therefore we don't accept that Karume is our legally appointed elected president and we won't cooperate with his government," defeated CUF candidate Seif Sharif Hamad told Reuters.
"What happened is bringing back the country into another political conflict."
Government officials said CUF rioters had provoked chaos after its leaders prematurely and illegally claimed victory.
Since multi-party politics was allowed across Tanzania in 1992, Hamad has stood and lost three times in Zanzibar.
On both previous occasions, the opposition has alleged fraud and boycotted the local parliament in lengthy standoffs.
Weeks of protests after the 2000 poll culminated in the death of at least 35 people in January 2001.
This time, the opposition had promised immediate street protests if defeated. But its leaders were wary of sending out supporters in a tense atmosphere after three days of violent clashes at the start of the week.
"They're in a dilemma. Naturally they want to start protests while international attention is on and sympathetic foreign media are still here," an African diplomat said.
"But they can hardly ask their supporters to walk straight into a guaranteed beating -- or death. I think it's a good thing everyone is cooling down a bit first. The danger for CUF is that the world will forget and move on."
At least one person, on Pemba, which is the smaller, poorer and most pro-opposition of Zanzibar's two main islands, has died in clashes with security forces.
Police on Pemba said one of their officers was missing and feared killed in the village of Piki after clashes earlier in the week. A Reuters reporter saw the arrest of opposition supporters still taking place on Pemba on Thursday.
But the streets of Stone Town -- capital of the main island Unguja and scene of fights between police and opposition supporters earlier in the week -- were getting back to normal. Some shops re-opened and a few tourists reappeared.
Government supporters say the opposition has deliberately provoked trouble, and hint that the CUF has a secret separatist and pro-Arab agenda.
"We appeal to CUF to respect the decision of the people of Zanzibar," the ruling party's deputy secretary-general Saleh Ferouz said. "The voting process has been a success."
Over and above the politics, Zanzibaris were upset at the potential impact of their turbulent election on tourism, the major economic earner along with the clove trade.
"We are peaceful people, this is a paradise. All these troubles harm us," said hawker Rafik Amour, unsuccessfully pursuing the first couple of tourists he had spotted in days.
In Dar es Salaam, election officials said that Tanzania's national election scheduled for Dec. 18 had been brought forward to Dec. 14 for administrative reasons.