Tanzania’s Authoritarian Turn
As every year, Tanzanians would have proudly celebrated the anniversary of their 1961 independence on December 9. Citizens would once again have hailed their East African nation as an “island of stability.” But since the violent suppression of protests surrounding the October 29 presidential election — leaving hundreds, possibly more than a thousand people dead — that self-image has been profoundly shaken. Fearing further unrest, the government has cancelled all Independence Day celebrations and placed security forces on high alert days in advance. At the same time, young activists have been calling via social media for new, peaceful demonstrations on December 9.
What happened in this East African model country of social harmony? When most Tanzanians stayed home on the morning of October 29 and representatives of the ruling CCM (Chama Cha Mapinduzi) began filling out voter lists themselves, spontaneous and at times violent youth protests erupted in Dar es Salaam and other cities. When some demonstrators attacked polling stations and police posts, security forces responded with maximum force.
Eyewitnesses reported targeted killings in the streets and during subsequent searches of buildings. Hospitals and morgues reported admitting large numbers of injured and dead. There were even reports of mass graves. Faced with the brutality of police and special forces, some protesters and civil society actors were so desperate that they appealed to the army to take control of the state.
After shutting down the internet for five days, President Samia Suluhu Hassan declared herself the winner of the election, claiming 97.66 percent of the vote with an alleged turnout of 87 percent. She categorically rejected all accusations against the government and the police. The government subsequently threatened severe penalties for anyone sharing information via WhatsApp or Instagram about victims of state violence.
The sudden outbreak of violence in Tanzania was unprecedented but not unexpected. When Hassan took office in 2021 following the sudden death of her predecessor John Pombe Magufuli, she promised—and initially began—an opening of the country’s ossified political system. But once it became clear that the opposition could seriously challenge the CCM’s more than 60-year monopoly on power, those reform efforts were reversed and replaced by new measures of repression. After calling for an election boycott, the leader of the largest opposition party Chadema,Tundu Lissu was arrested and charged with treason in April, while another presidential contender was barred from running.
As the first woman to hold the presidency and hailing from the semi-autonomous island of Zanzibar, Samia Suluhu Hassan began her term with a weak power base within the CCM. Some analysts attribute her shift toward authoritarianism to her need to prove herself to the party’s old guard — entrenched, male-dominated, and heavily influenced by intelligence figures.
Tanzania’s security apparatus, trained in the 1970s by East Germany’s Stasi under revered founding president Julius Nyerere, has always played a decisive role in steering the nation — warning, torturing, and kidnapping political opponents when deemed necessary. In June, a UN expert commission estimated the number of “disappeared” since 2019 at more than 200, criticizing the government’s actions as “unacceptable.”
The brutal crackdown on protests has been sharply condemned by Tanzania’s Catholic Church, international media, African election observers, and the country’s development partners. “A party that claims to preside over one of Africa’s most peaceful countries has had its Tiananmen Square moment,” wrote Britain’s Economist, describing the bloody pursuit of demonstrators.
Even typically cautious observer missions from the African Union and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) criticized the elections and their circumstances in unusually strong terms. The European Parliament urged the European Commission to freeze €156 million in development funds. Some observers even saw Tanzania’s major infrastructure projects — the East African Crude Oil Pipeline to Uganda and offshore gas exploration — in jeopardy.
Yet it took nearly a month for international diplomacy to respond forcefully to the activists’ allegations, which were reinforced by an investigation from U.S. broadcaster CNN. In a joint statement on December 4, 15 European embassies in Tanzania cited “credible reports from domestic and international organizations with evidence of extrajudicial killings, abductions, arbitrary arrests, and the disposal of bodies” — and demanded the release of all political prisoners.
On the same day, the U.S. State Department announced a “fundamental review” of relations with Tanzania, stating that the government’s “recent actions raise questions about the direction of the bilateral relationship.” After some authoritarian African governments interpreted Donald Trump’s “America First” foreign policy as a license for repression, the U.S. State Department now appears to have realized that allowing Tanzania to drift fully into the China-aligned, autocracy-friendly camp could harm American interests.
Samia Suluhu Hassan has so far responded to the accusations with a mix of denial and contrition, severity and conciliation. First, 240 protesters were charged with treason; then 139 detainees were released. Initially, she rejected all accusations against the police; later, she announced the creation of an eight-member investigative commission. To calm shocked Tanzanians and agitated international partners, she has now called for dialogue and reconciliation with the opposition. But after the government’s complete loss of credibility, no principled opposition figure is likely to accept such overtures.
Her cabinet appointments suggest that Hassan aims to consolidate CCM ranks rather than open them. Instead of reformers, family members have been elevated to government posts. Her daughter, Wanu Hafidh Ameir, is now deputy education minister, and Wanu’s husband has been appointed health minister, both overseeing substantial budgets. Her son, Abdul Halim Hafidh Ameir, is believed to have commanded an informal intelligence unit tasked with suppressing opposition activists for quite some time.
Tanzania now appears to be following the pattern of authoritarian regimes like neighboring Uganda: while the sons of the president control the military and security forces, siblings, daughters, and sons-in-law take a cut from state funds from their positions in the civilian bureaucracy.
Until now, most Tanzanians had tolerated the CCM’s de facto one-party rule — despite the multi-party system introduced in 1992 — whilst the security agencies used violence only sporadically as a warning. Everyone Tanzanian knew who at their work place served as an informant for the intelligence services. This web of mutual surveillance was the dark side of the otherwise successful nation-building under the“Father of the Nation” Julius Nyerere, which spared the Tanzania the ethnic divisions tearing at the foundations of many neighboring countries.
But in a country of more than 62 million people — 70 percent of them under 35, over 70 percent working in the informal sector, and many young people unemployed — a growing number of citizens now demand democratic participation and better living conditions.
Yet, as in many African countries, Tanzania’s “Generation Z” faces a deeply corrupt leadership drawn from the old liberation-era elite, operating through family networks whose privileged lifestyles stand in stark contrast to the precarious daily reality of the youth.
With blatant electoral fraud and the brutal suppression of protests, the CCM appears to have now completed its authoritarian turn. The “one-party state disguised as a democracy” (International Crisis Group) seems no longe capable of addressing its loss of legitimacy without open repression.
An international coalition of lawyers and human rights groups has now petitioned the International Criminal Court in The Hague to investigate allegations of crimes against humanity against President Hassan and her government.
Whether the protests of Tanzania’s Generation Z have been crushed for now — or will resume on the officially cancelled Independence Day — remains an open question. But the prospects that the ruling CCM under Samia Suluhu Hassan will finally undertake the long-promised reform of the political system are dim.