Tanzania’s President Samia Suluhu Hassan won the country’s presidential election with nearly 97.66% of the votes, according to the electoral commission’s results released on Sarturday.
The electoral body said the election had a turnout nearing 87% of the country’s 37.6 million registered voters.
Tanzania’s main opposition party CHADEMA was disqualified in April from the election, after it refused to sign a code of conduct and its leader Tundu Lissu was charged with treason.
CHADEMA said the election amounted to a “coronation.”
Opposition party ACT-Wazalendo was also disqualified from the vote, leaving only minor parties to face off against Hassan.
The 65-year-old rose to power in Tanzania in 2021, following the death of her predecessor, John Magufuli, while he was in office.
Hassan will now lead the East African country of 68 million people for another 5 years.
Hasan’s Chama Cha Mapinduzi party has ruled the country since independence more than 60 years ago.
Protests and lockdown
Tanzania’s election was marred by political violence, with protests and clashes taking place.
Protests began on Wednesday during the vote, with demonstrators tearing down banners of Hassan and setting fire to government buildings. Police responded by firing tear gas and gunshots, according to witnesses.
CHADEMA said on Friday that hundreds of people had been killed in the protests, while the UN Human Rights Office could only confirm at least 10 protest-related deaths in three cities.
The government rejected the opposition’s death toll as “hugely exaggerated” and imposed a lockdown on Wednesday night to keep people from taking to the streets.
Rights violations allegations ahead of vote
Human rights groups such as Amnesty International reported a pattern of enforced disappearances, arbitrary arrests and extrajudicial killings in Tanzania ahead of the polls.
In June, a UN panel of human rights experts said more than 200 cases of enforced disappearance have taken place in Tanzania since 2019, saying they were “alarmed by reports of a pattern of repression” ahead of elections.
Tanzania’s president oversaw “an unprecedented crackdown on political opponents,” they said.
The International Crisis Group said in its most recent analysis on the country that the Tanzanian goveernment has curbed freedom of expression, ranging from a ban on X and restrictions on the Tanzanian digital platform JamiiForums “to silencing critical voices through intimidation or arrest.”
Edited by: Srinivas Mazumdaru
