Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan proudly supported the “Four Rs” of reconciliation, resilience, reform and reconstruction, a plan that marked the complete departure of her predecessor, John Magufuli. She reversed many of the retrograde and repressive policies implemented by Magufuli and held reconciliable dialogues with the opposition. She also skillfully consolidated the power of her party, Cha Mapinduzi or CCM, and she has held the presidency of Tanzania since her independence in 1961.
However, as the 2025 election approaches, Samia's reforms have quickly stalled. The government's recent arrests of the president of Tanzania's main opposition party Tundu Lissu, Chama Cha demokrasia na Maendeleo or Chadema, and his subsequent prosecution for treason, allegations of treason related to his advocacy for election reforms clearly show that under Samia, it was certain that under Samia, had ruled under Samia and had ruled under Samia, which was certain.
After Lissu's arrest, Chadema was disqualified from the election after refusing to sign a code of conduct stipulated by the Independent National Election Commission. The government's uneasy and disillusionment with electoral reforms, Shadema passed the resolution “no reforms, no elections” in December 2024. The resolution is at the heart of the party’s campaign strategy and aims to expose the government’s reluctance to institutionalize these reforms.
In 2022, after dialogue with the opposition, Samia formed a task force on democracy and political parties, which released a list of reform proposals. The opposition demanded the establishment of an independent election commission, lifting the ban on political parties, and revising various laws governing political activities, which were incorporated into the task force's recommendations. The government then proposed reform legislation, which was proposed to institutionalize the required reforms, but actually maintained the status quo to a large extent.
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For example, the opposition has taken steps to ensure an independent election commission, but the president still has the executive power to appoint its members, despite changing the name of cosmetics from the National Election Commission to the Independent National Election Commission. Additionally, an election reform bill that became law in 2024 still allows government-appointed regional executive directors to monitor election returns during elections. Finally, the task force suggested that the outcome of the presidential election should be challenged in the courts (preferably the High Court), but there is still no mechanism. In 2020, the African Court of Human Rights ruled that Tanzania violated the presidential election challenge in court and violated the African Charter.
When the opposition is on the momentum, reform and reconciliation Samia has begun to turn rapidly.
In addition to progress in election reform under Samia, the ongoing crackdown, especially the kidnapping and disappearance of Chadema members, has also exacerbated the government's distrust.
Chadema's reform movement seemed to resonate with the Tanzanian public. Lissu is charged with treason because he calls for undermining the upcoming election if reform requirements are not met. Many Chadema candidates were disqualified in the local elections held in November, and CCM continued to win 99% of the local competitions.
Samia's outsider status is a Muslim woman in Zanzibar, Tanzanian semi-autonomous state, seen as a destruction of her chance to become president. However, she was able to overcome these obstacles through CCM's power brokers, such as former President Jakaya Kikwete. She also uses the party process and presidency to eliminate the power of her competitors.
When the opposition was on the momentum, the reforms and reconciliation she began were quickly reversed. After banning political parties, Chadma began a national rally, demanding that the new constitution be the best way to consolidate reforms. The demand for a new constitution became Shadema's main agenda, even as they strongly opposed government corruption and controversial government deals, such as an agreement with DP World, a Dubai-based company in Dubai, to manage the ports in Dar es Salaam and the ports elsewhere in the country where the company is very generous to the company. With opposition to the deal, the government began to use means to keep it silent. Critics of port deals and opposition figures have been harassed, arrested and detained. What followed was the records of kidnapping, disappearance and killing of opposition voices.
Then, in January 2025, at a special CCM conference, Samia was declared the presidential candidate for the party’s upcoming elections in a political maneuver that defies the party’s tradition. CCM is traditionally nominated in June or July of election year. This unprecedented move shows Samia’s intention is to eliminate potential partisan rivals to the president’s nomination. With the election agency shutting Shadema out, it seems she has eliminated any external challengers now, too. This led Samia and CCM to a landslide victory in the general election.
These developments suggest that the decline in democracy in Tanzania is worrying. In its latest freedom report in the world, the Freedom House changed the country's rating from “partial freedom” to “free”, reflecting the country's poor performance in measures to political rights and civil liberties.
At the regional level, the democratic anti-sliding in Tanzania reflects similar trends in Kenya and Uganda. In November, Uganda's long-time opposition figure Kizza Besigye was kidnapped while in Kenya and later charged with treason. Kenya-based Tanzanian human rights activist Maria Sarungi Tsehai briefly abducted in Nairobi in January, saying she believes the Tanzanian government is involved. In Kenya, reports of kidnapping and enforced disappearances were reported in amid protests led by young people and proposed tax rate hikes in June 2024. These patterns suggest that a wider regional shift towards repression and away from democracy.
The Tanzanian government's decision to cancel Chadema's decision to hold the presidential election scheduled for October remains to be seen, or will revoke Lissu's treason charges. But it is clear that Samia's brief experiment in progressive reform has ended.
Nicodemus Minde is a researcher at the Institute of Security in Nairobi. He wrote about the politics, culture and power politics of Africa.
In Tanzanian posts, Samia’s reforms collapsed outside, first of all, world political commentary.
