Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan won the country’s disputed election with more than 97 percent of the vote, according to official results announced early Saturday, in a rare landslide victory in the region,
Arab News reports.
The result is likely to amplify the concerns of critics, opposition groups and others who said the election in Tanzania was not a contest but a coronation after Hassan’s two main rivals were barred or prevented from running. She faced 16 candidates from smaller parties.
The Oct. 29 election was marred by violence as demonstrators took to the streets of major cities to protest the vote and stop the counting of votes. The military has been deployed to help police quell riots. Internet connectivity has been on and off in the East African nation, disrupting travel and other activities.
The protests have spread across Tanzania, and the government has postponed the reopening of universities, which had been set for Nov. 3.
There was a tense calm in the streets of Dar es Salaam, the commercial capital, on Saturday. Security forces manning roadblocks asked to see the identity cards of those who went out.
Tanzanian authorities have not said how many people have been killed or injured in the violence. A spokesman for the UN human rights office, Seif Magango, on Friday told a UN briefing in Geneva by video from Kenya that credible reports of 10 deaths were reported in Dar es Salaam, alongside Shinyanga and Morogoro towns.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Friday he was concerned by the situation in Tanzania and urged all parties to “prevent further escalation.”
The foreign ministers of the UK, Canada and Norway in a joint statement cited “credible reports of a large number of fatalities and significant injuries, as a result of the security response to protests.”
Tundu Lissu, leader of the Chadema opposition group, has been jailed for months, charged with treason after he called for electoral reforms that he said were a prerequisite for free and fair elections. Another opposition figure, Luhaga Mpina of the ACT-Wazalendo group, was barred from running.
At stake for the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi, or CCM, party was its decades-long grip on power amid the rise of charismatic opposition figures who hoped to lead the country toward political change.
Still, a landslide victory is unheard of in the region. Only President Paul Kagame, the authoritarian leader of Rwanda, regularly wins by a landslide.
Rights groups including Amnesty International cited a pattern of enforced disappearances, arbitrary arrests and extrajudicial killings in Tanzania ahead of the polls.
In June, a United Nations panel of human rights experts cited more than 200 cases of enforced disappearance since 2019, saying they were “alarmed by reports of a pattern of repression” ahead of elections.
Hassan oversaw “an unprecedented crackdown on political opponents,” the International Crisis Group said in its most recent analysis. “The government 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.”
