Tanzania’s Hassan declared landslide winner in election that triggered violent protests | Tanzania
Tanzanian president Samia Suluhu Hassan was declared the winner of the country’s controversial election, receiving more than 97 percent of the votes following violent protests across the country at the beginning of the week.
The overwhelming result announced by Tanzania’s election commission gave Hasan, who came to power in 2021 after the death of his predecessor, a five-year term to rule the East African country of 68 million people.
The danger for the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) party was that it remained in power for decades amid the rise of charismatic opposition figures hoping to steer the country towards political change.
Still, there is no word of a landslide victory in the region. Only Rwanda’s authoritarian leader Paul Kagame regularly wins by landslides.
Rights groups, including Amnesty International, stated that enforced disappearances, arbitrary arrests and extrajudicial killings were common in Tanzania ahead of the elections.
In June, a panel of United Nations human rights experts said they were “alarmed by reports of a pattern of repression” ahead of the elections, citing more than 200 cases of enforced disappearances since 2019.
Protests broke out during Wednesday’s presidential and parliamentary vote, according to witnesses; Some demonstrators tore down Hasan’s banners, set fire to government buildings, and police opened fire with tear gas and gunfire.
Demonstrators were angry about the election commission’s exclusion of Hasan’s two biggest rivals from the race and what they described as widespread repression.
In April, Tundu Lissu, deputy leader of the main opposition party Chadema, was arrested and charged with treason and cybercrime. His party, which led calls for a boycott of the elections unless electoral systems were reformed, was later disqualified from participating.
Last month, Luhaga Mpina, leader of another opposition party, ACT-Wazalendo, was also disqualified, meaning Hassan was only running against less well-known rivals from smaller parties.
Those who criticized the government were also kidnapped and arrested before the election.
Tanzania’s main opposition party said Friday that hundreds of people had been killed in protests, while the U.N. human rights office said credible reports showed at least 10 people had been killed in three cities.
The government rejected the opposition’s death toll as “grossly exaggerated” and rejected criticism of its human rights record.
via Reuters and Associated Press
