When Promise Withers: Tanzania’s Leader Starts Using an Old Playbook

When Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan took office in 2021, the hope was that she would be a different kind of Tanzanian leader, one that would allow civil liberties, stop repression, and promote the development the country so desperately needs. 

In the first year, she go off to a good start, say observers, promoting the “Four Rs” of reconciliation, resilience, reforms, and rebuilding, becoming a marked contrast to her predecessor, dictator John Magufuli, who, when he died, catapulted his vice president, Hassan, into the country’s top post. 

The president, from the Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) party, which has held power since 1977, released political prisoners, removed restrictions on media outlets, began working with the opposition, lifted a ban on opposition party rallies, and started a program of electoral reform.  

But that was then, before a crackdown on the opposition began last year and is intensifying in the runup to elections later this year. 

“The façade of progressive change that had been constructed under Samia is crumbling and could presage a return to authoritarian rule in Tanzania,” wrote World Politics Review. 

Recently, the government arrested the country’s main opposition leader, Tundu Lissu, for treason and other crimes, charges he denies as politically motivated, and come ahead of elections in October.  

The accusations are in relation to social media posts he made calling for Tanzanians to boycott the elections, citing the possibility of rigging. His party last year began a “No Reforms, No Election” campaign, which calls for reforms to the country’s electoral system, such as an independent election commission and an ability to challenge the results in court. Without these, the party says, the current system is weighted on the side of the ruling party. The treason charge carries the death penalty. 

As the BBC explained, Lissu, who was shot 17 times in an assassination attempt in 2017 and arrested multiple times over the years, “is the great survivor of Tanzanian politics – and one of its most persecuted politicians.” 

At the opening of his trial last week, Lissu, the chair of Tanzania’s main opposition party, Chama cha Demokrasia na Maendeleo (CHADEMA) appeared sanguine and said he was “hopeful,” telling his supporters that “all will be fine.”  

Still, the government has also banned his party from running candidates in the election after it refused to sign a code of conduct mandated by the Independent National Electoral Commission in order to participate in the elections.  

Party officials say they refused to sign because of the absence of election reforms, Africanews reported. 

Now, according to the Council on Foreign Relations, October’s election promises to be a repeat of local elections in November, where many CHADEMA candidates were disqualified, and the CCM ended up winning 99 percent of the local races. 

Meanwhile, the abductions and disappearances of CHADEMA members continue, say human rights groups.  

Dioniz Kipanya, a CHADEMA party official, disappeared in July after leaving his house, Amnesty International detailed, calling him and others who have disappeared the victims of a “campaign of repression.” Among these are two CHADEMA youth activists who were kidnapped in August by a group of men suspected to be police officers. And the body of Ali Mohamed Kibao, a senior CHADEMA member, was found in September after suspected security agents had abducted him from a bus while he was travelling home. According to a post-mortem his body had been soaked in acid and bore signs of a beating. 

Some say the wasted promise of Hassan’s presidency is due to hardliners in her party whose support she needs to remain in power and whose influence is very strong.  

“President Samia Suluhu Hassan’s ascent to power following Magufuli’s death provided an opportunity for the country of 67 million to exhale and (pivot) back toward Tanzania’s historically more moderate political culture,” wrote the Africa Center for Strategic Studies. “In the process, the lines between the party and the state have become blurred. Like other liberation parties in Africa, some CCM members feel entitled to govern indefinitely and, emboldened by Magufuli’s tenure, are willing to resort to whatever tactics needed to maintain their absolute hegemony.”