Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan was sworn in for a second term on Monday during what opposition leaders and civil rights activists are calling the country’s worst political crisis since its independence in 1961.
“Our responsibility is to build today to be better than yesterday,” Hassan said in her inauguration address, which was aired on state TV from a fortified military base rather than the standard locale of a public stadium.
“I beg that we continue protecting our values of unity and collaboration.”
Her call for unity comes just days after thousands of Tanzanians took to the streets across the country—and especially in Dar es Salaam, the country’s largest city—to protest what they claim was a rigged presidential election.
Official figures state that Hassan won nearly 98 percent of the vote last week, and the government maintains that the election was fair and transparent.
But critics have denounced the election for its exclusion of Hassan’s two biggest challengers; Tanzania’s main opposition party, Chadema, was barred from running for its refusal to sign a code of conduct, and its leader was arrested in April on disputed treason charges.
“In most areas, voters could not express their democratic will,” election observers from the Southern African Development Community said in their preliminary report on Monday; they also reported having witnessed situations at some polling stations that “created a perception of ballot stuffing.”
Such actions sparked mass anti-government protests that turned violent when some demonstrators set fire to government buildings, attacked police stations, and vandalized polling centers.
Police responded with gunfire and tear gas, and the government shut down internet access, imposed a curfew in Dar es Salaam, and deployed the military.
“This is the third time in less than a year that Tanzanian authorities have resorted to an internet blockade to silence dissenting voices,” Amnesty International wrote on Monday.
At least 10 people were killed in the chaos, according to official reports, but the opposition maintains that the death toll is actually in the hundreds.
“I cannot negotiate with the dictator Samia,” Chadema leader Tundu Lissu said. “I begged her not to kill people, and she turned a blind eye. Now she is fighting with Tanzanians, not Chadema.”
Hassan’s government has dismissed these fatality numbers as “hugely exaggerated.”
Hassan came to power in 2021 after her predecessor, John Magufuli, died from health issues.
She is Tanzania’s first woman president and one of only two female heads of state in Africa.
Under Hassan’s rule, rights groups have documented extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests, torture, rapes, disappearances, and other restrictions on freedom.
“After Hassan replaced President John Magufuli following his sudden death in March 2021, many analysts believed that her tenure would mark a break from his authoritarian regime,” Nosmot Gbadamosi wrote in FP’s Africa Brief last week.
“But now, some analysts and critics consider Hassan to be worse than the autocrat she replaced.”
This record has left foreign leaders wary of backing Tanzania’s election results. The African Union congratulated Hassan on her win over the weekend, but it urged her administration to uphold “fundamental rights and freedoms.”
Members of the European Parliament took a harsher tone: “What should have been a celebration of democracy, instead unfolded in an atmosphere of repression, intimidation, and fear. These elections cannot be regarded as free and fair.”
(Foreign Policy)
