The Reign in Africa

Meet Tanzania's New President, Same as the Old President

Tanzania is the largest nation in East Africa and home to the iconic Serengetti National Park and Mount Kilimanjaro. They just had an election. And a woman named Samia Suluhu Hassan (hereinafter Samia) just got her second term as President of Tanzania. Women presidents are a rarity anywhere, but particularly in Africa. The United Nations (UN) says there are only 29 countries on earth being led by a female. For a socially conservative African nation to elect a female president is particularly astounding.

Samia was born on the island of Zanzibar, just off the coast of Tanzania. Whether or not you’ve heard of Samia, you have certainly heard of the most famous person born in Zanzibar. That was Freddy Mercury. But this story has nothing to do with him.

Tanzania

Economically speaking, Tanzania ranks as a lower-middle income country, meaning that it is poor, but not totally poor. About 49% of the country live below the poverty line, but Tanzania’s gross domestic product is increasing and economic development looks promising. To its credit, Tanzania has lots of mineral resources, tremendous and not fully tapped tourist potential, and was where the late Jane Goodall conducted a lot of her world-famous research chimpanzees. Over 14,000 lions roam free in Tanzania and every year over a million wildebeest, zebra, and gazelle charge through ancient pathways on their “great migration” to greener pastures (peaking in July to September as these animals cross the Mara River, but remember, seasons are reversed below the Equator). This wouldn’t seem like a big resource, but the “great migration” draws a lot of tourists every year.

The capital of Tanzania is Dodoma and its financial hub is Dar Es Salaam.

Tanzania, like most African nations, faces some formidable challenges. Educational opportunities for the masses need to be built out. The country actually has numerous universities and a good school system for the wealthy, but limited access for poor kids. Even the new president, Samia, earned her MS degree from none other than Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU). The main occupation in Tanzania remains farming, so economic development is another challenge. The country’s official languages are Swahili and English, but many people speak local dialects and some functional Swahili but no English. Most Tanzanian universities expect students to apply in English and speak English upon enrollment, but many poor and rural Tanzanians do not know English. And even those children of poor families who could get admitted to a quality Tanzanian school might be shut out because of price.

Culturally, Tanzania is diverse. In terms of religion, 63% is Christian, 34% Muslim, and a small proportion of people practice either an indigenous nature religion, some other religion (there are a few Hindus and Buddhists), or no religion at all. Samia is Muslim.

The Election

Samia Hassan got herself elected President this November of 2025. The inaugural festivities took place in Dodoma, the capital city, on a military parade ground. Following tradition, Samia held both a spear and a shield for the ceremony. The event was closed to the public, but state TV carried the swearing-in. It used to be that inaugurations were more public, but recent unrest has shut down pubic access to the ceremony. Cities like Dar Es Salaam were subject to a five-day curfew. There is a lot of sketchy stuff going on Tanzania.

The election itself was sketchy.

First of all, Samia walked away with 98% of the vote. Only Kim Jong-Un does better (he gets 100% of the vote in North Korea). Any election where one candidate gets 98% of the vote is a little suspect for my taste.

She had some people running against her, but some got disqualified or thrown out of the race and a few landed in prison.

Hundreds of deaths occurred around the election. There are credible accounts of Tanzanian citizens who said family members went out to vote and never came home—they are still missing. The number of dead surrounding the election are about as secret as the whereabouts of some of the voters. The United Nations (UN) says it has reports of at least 10 voters who wound up dead. The Chadema Party (Samia’s most credible opposition) said the figure is more like 800 people.

Pope Leo XIV called for prayers for Tanzania and reported his concern over the “numerous victims” who lost their lives. Amnesty International has called the election a “wave of terror” and alleged torture and murders.

While Samia said she is sad about the “loss of lives” due to the election, she also thanked the Tanzanian election commission for running a good election.

I’d hate to see what she would call a bad election.

The Not So Loyal Opposition

Chadema is the largest and most powerful political party that opposes Samia. They didn’t win the election this year, largely because they were not allowed to run.

Tanzania has no shortage of political parties. There are at least 16 reasonably respectable political parties, not counting Chadema. Many are small but all of this group are credible. None of them won the election, either, because they were also barred from participating.

The leader of Chadema is a guy named Tundu Lissu and he is on trial right now for treason. Talk about lawfare. But Lissu is no coward. In 2017, he was shot 16 times in a single assassination attempt, only to survive. Lissu is not easily dissuaded from his political mission. Not surprisingly, his main political platform is election reform.

Compounding other election-related problems of Tanzania is a national internet shutdown/slowdown, so that news out of Tanzania has dried up to a trickle. Some reporters on the ground say the situation is “dire.”

Who is Samia Hassan?

Samia Hassan is a 65-year-old Muslim woman who first got into office in 2021 as a vice president. She’s been in the upper levels of Tanzanian politics for about a decade and has even earned the nickname “Mama Samia.” As vice president, she introduced some modest reforms, such as allowing political assemblies. She also released Lissu’s predecessor from prison. But she was no bleeding heart liberal, either. She is on the record calling those who protest “criminals.” And like most politicians, the longer she stayed in office, the more tyrannical she became.

Her political party is called the Chama Cha Mapinduzi, which fortunately goes by the name CCM. CCM is the largest political party in Tanzania and, curiously, it’s won every election since 1992. That’s over 30 years of nonstop rule.

Mama Samia is CCM all the way.

To her credit, she has broken some glass ceilings. She was one of the first women to ever serve at a high post in the Tanzanian cabinet. She was the first female vice president of the country. And now, she is the first woman president of Tanzania. (The first time she got in due to a death of the incumbent; this time she got “elected.”)

The Strange Death of John Magufuli

She ran for the first time as a CCM candidate in 2015 on the ticket with a guy named John Magufuli. Magufuli was running for president and, in a surprise move, he tapped Samia as his vice presidential running mate. It was an odd choice, since Magufuli was a big name in African politics and Samia was a more obscure figure, not to mention being a woman. Magufuli was a devout Christian who often talked about God in his speeches; Samia is Muslim.

Magufuli won the presidency in November 2015 and Samia ascended to the vice presidency as the first female to ever hold that office. At first, Magufuli and Samia seemed the picture of compatibility, but then they started to squabble and political gossips reported trouble in paradise. Nevertheless, Samia made several public statements of support and unity with Magufuli.

In 2020, Magufuli and Samia ran again and won again, although there were allegations of election fraud. This is why the main opposing party CCM keeps demanding election reforms.

Now this is where it gets weird.

One day, specifically March 17, 2021, Samia announced the President Magifuli was dead.

This seems like an odd way to do things, but there are no allegations that Magifuli met with foul play. He had been diagnosed with congestive heart failure, a potentially fatal condition, and the official word is that was his cause of death. He died in a hospital.

There was speculation that he actually died of COVID. For some reason, this was a bit of a controversial subject, since Magufuli believed COVID risks were overplayed. In fact, he once submitted material from a papaya fruit to a COVID testing lab for analysis (as if it were a human sample), only to find out that the papaya had COVID. Scientists denounced him, the head of the COVID lab was fired, and other people thought Magufuli was just showboating.

It is highly unlikely that Samia had anything to do with his death, but what is unusual was that his last weeks of life and being critically ill were kept secret. Opposing political figure Lissu claims that Magifuli actually died as early as March 10 but the official announcement was not made until a week later. There are some reports out of African media outlets that President Magifuli initially sought treatment in Kenya but was flown home to Tanzania on life support when it was clear he was approaching the end of life. At any rate, his illness and hospitalization(s) were handled as a state secret until his death was officially announced.

President Magifuli had not made any public appearance since late February of 2025, so he was out of the public eye for a few weeks. Samia said he had been sick, but no one really knew any details until they were announcing his funeral.

Since President Magifuli was dead, Samia Hassan was then due to become the new President of Tanzania. And that’s exactly what happened. On March 19, 2021, Samia was sworn in as Tanzania’s first female president.

Her first public statement was to announce Tanzania would be in mourning for Magifuli. (Reports conflict as to whether the period of mourning was to be two or three weeks.) That seemed dignified and a kind of low-risk way to start her term of office. Then she pivoted. Right after that

• She fired all of the Magifuli loyalists in the government

• Named Philip Mpango (former minister of finance) as her vice-president

• Then she gathered up the people that Magifuli had fired when he first came into office and reinstated them

The 2025 Election

In this 2025 election, Samia Hassan ran for President directly, but she shut down opposition. Her original conciliatory tone and emphasis on political reforms is long gone. She has earned some cautious credit by Tanzanians for “stabilizing” the economy; national unemployment hovers around a respectable 3%. However, young voters and those who seek election reform are not in her fan club.

There are those bold enough to criticize Samia Hassan. One of them was Humphrey Polepole, a former Tanzanian ambassador to Cuba. He resided in the Tanzanian city of Dar Es Salaam, the nation’s financial center. In early October 2025 (while the election campaign was going on), Polepole’s brother reported him missing. There was evidence of a violent abduction, as intruders apparently broke into his home. Blood was found all over the ransacked scene. Polepole has not been heard from again. He is about 45 years old and his family are trying to raise awareness about the abduction.

But right now, he’s one of many lost in the election.

Dar Es Salaam was put under curfew when Samia got elected; it lasted five days and is over now. Once famous in Africa for being a “city of peace,” Dar Es Salaam was seeing gunfire and unrest following Samia’s election.

In 2022, Time Magazine listed Samia Hassan as one of the 100 most influential people on earth. This is her official picture and it says it all.