Tanzania in turmoil after ‘Tiananmen Square moment’

Tanzania has been profoundly shaken by a brutal election crackdown in which hundreds of protesters were gunned down by security forces, a chapter activists are describing as the east African country’s “Tiananmen Square moment”.

Samia Suluhu Hassan was declared the winner of October 29 presidential elections with 98 per cent of votes — cast on a supposedly high turnout — and sworn in at a military barracks days later.

But her victory has proved shallow, the circumstances around it prompting widespread censure both on the continent and beyond, as details emerge in the wake of an internet blackout of the scale and brutality of the crackdown in a usually stable country.

“The people are now mourning, frustrated, disappointed, betrayed and affected by the mockery called the election,” said Tito Magoti, a lawyer and human rights activist. Tanzanians, he said, were coming to terms with “the human costs resulting from mass shooting”.

This followed a campaign of state-orchestrated repression that saw dozens of Suluhu Hassan’s opponents forcibly “disappeared”, the media muzzled, and two main challengers barred from contesting.

“No ruling party should be allowed to operate with such brutality and impunity,” human rights activist Liberatus Mwang’ombe said in an appeal on X for international intervention on Friday.

Fearing that Tanzania’s lurch back towards authoritarian rule could prove contagious, Kenyan politician and former justice minister Martha Karua warned that if Tanzania were allowed to get away with the election crackdown, others, particularly in east Africa, would be tempted to follow suit.

Tanzania’s long-cultivated image as a stable pillar of east Africa has taken a severe knock. Its tourism industry, which draws nearly 2mn international visitors annually to Zanzibar and to national parks such as the Serengeti, has been shaken by travel warnings.

The ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi party has been in power since independence from Britain in 1961. Although one-party rule technically came to an end in 1992, in practice the CCM has ceded little ground and past elections have also been marred by intimidation.

What was unprecedented this time, according to political commentators and rights activists, was the level of public anger at the restrictions on political freedom and the scale of mobilisation of security forces to counter it.

In an unusually strong rebuke, African Union observers that the environment before, during and after the vote was “not conducive to peaceful conduct and acceptance of electoral outcomes”.  

As a result of the government-ordered internet blackout, it has taken weeks for a reliable picture of the crackdown to emerge. One file of photos sent to the Financial Times showed more than 100 bodies in different parts of the country, most of them ripped apart by bullets.

“Me and fellow researchers have found it difficult to gather information because people are afraid of what will happen if they talk,” said one human rights advocate who asked not to be named.

The opposition Chadema party estimates the death toll to be more than 1,000. Government officials have called these figures exaggerated. However, the UN Human Rights Office said information obtained from different sources in Tanzania suggested hundreds of people were killed.

Harrowing reports have emerged of “families desperately searching everywhere for their loved ones, visiting one police station after another and one hospital after another”, UN human rights chief Volker Türk said.

Denmark and several other European countries have backed Volker’s call for a UN investigation into the violence.

Jim Risch, Republican chair of the US Senate foreign relations committee, issued a strongly worded joint statement with Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen on Friday. In it they called for the US to reassess its relations with Tanzania in light of the country’s “continued pivot from the rule of law, reform, and good governance”.

The mood within the country has continued to darken. Police have sought to blame foreign agitators for the unrest. The president herself said the protests were neither “civil nor patriotic”. There was “no alternative” she said, “but to use all the security measures to remain with a safe country”.

Suluhu Hassan, the former vice-president, became president when her predecessor John Magufuli died in 2021. At first Tanzania’s first female head of state won praise for opening up politics and releasing political prisoners detained under Magufuli.

But the opening proved short lived. Experts say she lacked strong roots within the ruling party, adding that this may help explain the ferocity with which she has fought to remain in power.

Godfrey Mwampembwa, a Tanzanian cartoonist who publishes under the pen name Gado, called her an “accidental president” and described her as being out of her depth. He published cartoons on social media showing Suluhu Hassan being sworn in beside a pile of dead bodies.

According to human rights groups, nearly 500 people have been detained since the election. More than 100 have been charged with treason — an offence that can carry the death penalty.

Although the protests have subsided, the crackdown continues. Tanzania’s Legal and Human Rights Centre said its staff were manhandled by security forces and had laptops and mobile phones removed at a hotel in Dar es Salaam on Wednesday night.

Since internet coverage was restored earlier this month, police have issued mass text messages warning people not to share images that “might cause panic”.

Maria Sarungi Tsehai, a campaigner for political reform, said government attempts to cover its tracks had inflamed passions further.

“It is creating so much anger among the youth and in families at all levels,” she said. “People looking for loved ones are being harassed. A few people got bodies back on condition that they sign a form saying they died in a road accident.”

In a letter emailed to Suluhu Hassan on November 10, self-described “Tanzanian generation Z” protesters called on the president, police and army chiefs to resign, claiming to have gathered hundreds of thousands of signatures in support.

Protesters are planning fresh demonstrations for December 9, Tanzania’s independence day. The police were trying to track down the organisers, Tsehai said.  

“The police are trying to find who is behind this but it’s an old way of thinking. They are assuming that one person is organising centrally and directing these young people.

“They cannot fathom the fact this could be organic,” she said.  

Additional reporting by David Pilling from London