Why would Mama Suluhu be so cosy as regional peace haven burns?

Tanzania is emerging out of a chaotic and highly controlled and uncompetitive election.

Structural constraints on opposition candidates and aspirants by the State have rendered the entire exercise to be no more than electoral fiction.

It casts a long shadow of legitimacy on the Samia Suluhu Hassan regime.

The messy elections have just thrown Tanzania into serious waters of instability and President Suluhu into the doldrums of illegitimacy. 

International media reports indicate that as many as 700 people have probably been killed in the electoral mayhem, with thousands more injured.

What is eating East Africa’s haven of peace?

In 1866, Sultan Said Majid of the Al Bu Said Dynasty of Zanzibar gave the coastal fishing village of Mzizima the name Dar-es-Salaam.

So impressed was he with the serenity of this village that the Zanzibari sultan changed its name from the Swahili “healthy city” to Arabic “haven of peace.”

Almost as if this was providential, Dar-es-Salaam would, several decades on become the headquarters of the United Republic of Tanzania and Zanzibar, under the iconic Julius Nyerere. And for close to seven decades, Tanzania has been Dar-es-Salaam writ large.

Known variously as Jumba la Amani (house of peace), Bandari Kuu (Great Port), and Makazi ya Salama (Abode of Safety), Dar has symbolized the complacent tranquillity. Writ large, this attribute has defined East Africa’s largest country, Tanzania; the home of peace, health, and safety. 

When Kenya’s Boniface Mwangi and Uganda’s Agather Atuhire were recently captured and tortured there, President Samia Suluhu Hassan advised “foreign creatures” who were “trying to destabilize Tanzania” to stay in their lane, “in their chaotic countries, where they had been subdued.” She rubbed it in through and through. 

But that was until now. For, the angel of mischief seems to be abroad with his wicked scythe and pitchfork in East Africa’s haven of peace.

He has been afoot, turning topsy-turvy the legendary peaceful sanctuary.  

The nation’s youth have exploded into the streets, and into pathways in hamlets, and in small towns, decrying authoritarianism under President Suluhu.

They have called her a dictator and her regime a reign of terror. That is hard hitting against Africa’s unofficial headquarters of liberation and independence movements.

The billows of smoke, rocky roads, and arson must turn President Nyerere in his grave. These are the last images anyone would expect to see in Africa’s most civilized nation. 

What the world witnessed this week was not the Tanzania of Nyerere’s dreams. When he left the chalk and the classroom to build one of the most ideologically focused nations in the world, Nyerere had the vision of a nation of ustaarab and uungwana (civilization and chivalry).  He worked hard towards that nation, and although he did not realize his dreams, he left behind a lot to be proud of.

Alone in Black Africa, Nyerere left the legacy of an ethnically integrated nation of a proud people who cherish their independence.

They speak Kiswahili with inimitable finesse and, what’s more, it is their national language. They don’t wrestle with strange foreign tongues like their neighbours in Kenya, Uganda, DRC, or even little Rwanda and Burundi which are linguistically homogeneous.

Overlapping everything is the spirit that Prof Ali Mazrui called Tanzaphilia, a romantic fascination with their country and everything else about it.  

Yet, Nyerere’s shadow has been on the pale, under the watch of his successors.

This is perhaps with the exception of Benjamin Mkapa, Tanzania’s third president. Mkapa brought lustre to his country through a sterling ten-year rule.

He shifted Tanzania from decades of poverty under the failed Ujamaa experiments of the 1960s and the 70s, to a promising fast developing country.

Within the region, he was instrumental to the return of the East African Community, together with Presidents Moi of Kenya and Museveni of Uganda. 

But why would Nyerere feel betrayed by those who have come after him? In his day, Mwalimu Nyerere was a moral and ideological compass.

Dar-es-Salaam of his day was the political Mecca of Africa. It was the home of liberation movements, and the headquarters of the anti-colonial sentiment. Tanzania was the epicentre of Africa’s clarion call for liberty and human rights. 

Tanzania became a sanctuary to South Africa’s African National Congress (ANC), Mozambique’s FRELIMO, ZANU of Zimbabwe, and Angola’s MPLA. Nyerere’s principled authority ruled African nationalist minds and hearts with unequalled selfless austerity, and unquestionable moral authority.

Departing from the centre of power (in 1985) and from this life (in 1994), Mwalimu left behind a luminous legacy. He gave Tanzania and Africa a mind, a soul, and a history. 

But has Nyerere’s legacy been at once a blessing and a burden for those who have come after him? Has it, especially, been a burden to the nation’s sixth president, and the first woman Head of State and government? Mwalimu’s successors have, without a doubt, have had to reckon with romantic ideals that they have not believed in.

They have governed themselves and their country with flowery poetic idiom and cadence. Yet, they have been short of inner personal faith and practical muscle to walk the Nyerere talk. 

Easily the palest and most dreaded of all has been Samia Suluhu Hassan. Suluhu got into office almost through divine happenstance following the death of President John Pombe Magufuli in 2021.

She was the darling of the nation and the region on her arrival. Everyone wanted to hug her and, in the manner of speaking, to kiss her. Today many in her country want to throw her up, and to kick her. 

Has East Africa’s soft-spoken motherly queen with a mellifluous voice, felicity of Swahili diction, celerity of mind, and a mellow gift of the garb failed the test of democratic governance? Could she possibly pull herself out of the present crisis in her country to restore the founders’ dream of a humane nation that is led by rank philosopher kings and queens?

That Suluhu has steadily degenerated into the common African despot is beyond question. That she has brought the crisis in her country to herself, the nation and the region, is equally valid.

Her predecessor John Pombe Magufuli was a dreadful and dreaded no-nonsense individual. He attempted to padlock his country in a cage of reflexive authoritarianism. 

A rare votary for discipline and self-reliance, he attempted to restore these two creeds of the founding President. He was hostile to indolence and sleaze. Above everything, he dreamt of reviving Mwalimu’s spirit of self-reliance and to win for Tanzania respect in the region and all over the world.

His brusque style made Suluhu a welcome relief. 

Magufuli was loved and feared at the same time. His unmethodical and brass diplomacy made him a discomfort to fellow African Heads of State, and especially his East African compatriots.

Unease with traditional offshore partners and strained relations in the region were the order of the day.

Magufuli was the kind of person to arbitrarily ban imports from Kenya in contempt of existing protocols on free movement of goods and persons in the East African Community. 

He could impound and set on fire livestock from Kenya. He would go on to speak scornfully against voiced concern about such crassness. In a sense, both Dar-es-Salaam and the outside world lived on tiptoe in the Magufuli years. 

Then came Suluhu after the rather sudden and mysterious death of Magufuli. The Constitution paved the way for her to complete his second term, which she has just done. She arrived as a whiff of fresh air.

She appeared like the person to rebrand Tanzania. She made overtures of opening up the political space, looking ready to allow the opposition to ventilate popular grief.  

She spoke calmly and endearingly about foreign investment in her country. She began to restore diplomatic warmth and, by and large, brought back the democratic and liberal drum beats that had characterized the promising Mkapa years.

Yet, as soon as the opposition smelled freedom and opportunity, she embarked upon the clampdown that has today placed her country on tenterhooks.

Did the state-of-the-art that Samia found on the ground set the stage for what have been four years of absolutism? The ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) was, by 2020, a tired and bloated entity. It had strayed far from the disciplined liberating movement of the ‘70s and ‘80s.

It threw away the ideals it had inherited from its precursor, TANU, and morphed into an intolerant ogre. As its founding legitimacy and popularity has waned, so has CCM embraced authoritarianism, and even totalitarianism. 

The thrust has been to embrace patronage and bureaucracy. You don’t do anything with the government, unless you are a member of CCM, or CCM affiliated. No appointment in government, no business opportunities, and no nothing! But, besides, you are not allowed to ventilate your grief.

Ahead of the protests that have rocked the country, the regime has been exceptionally high-handed, to the extent that it is next to impossible for the media to get anyone to comment on civic activities in the country. 

Even efforts to observe court proceedings against opposition leader Tundu Lisssu proved atrocious for Kenya’s former Chief Justice Willy Mutunga. The CJ Emeritus was rudely turned away at the Julius Nyerere International Airport, together with former Justice and Constitutional Affairs Minister in the Kibaki government, Martha Karua.

It did not matter that they only wanted to observe the proceedings. 

Of course, the presence of Mutunga and Karua, even without opening the mouth to utter a single word, was going to exert some level of pressure for integrity in the trial. Yet, that is how democracy works.

Democracy in the East African Community also demands that the East African passport should count for something, as should the anathema that is played at official functions, and the flag that is flown at public institutions.

All these have meant nothing for President Suluhu, who now seems set to secure a second term, having run, practically, only against herself in the ended chaotic elections. 

The detentions of Mwangi and Atuhaire were abusive beyond violation of the person by false imprisonment. Violent sexual trauma was also imputed in media interviews that they gave.

Such violent actions are intended to intimidate, and have become the norm. They speak to the logic of authoritarianism as an instrument of silencing progressive voices. 

The incarceration of Tundu Lissu itself has been a lowly tactic to lock him out of the presidential race.

It is instructive that Suluhu only allowed minions with the outlook of quislings to run against her. All this amidst documented recurrence of enforced disappearances.

Human rights entities recorded upwards of 200 such disappearances in 2022– 2024, according to the Tanzania Human Rights Report of 2024. 

State agency is not in doubt, as lent credence by President Suluhu’s public celebration of denial of entry to Mutunga and Karua, and overt praise to those who abducted Mwangi and Atuhaire.

Put together with suppression of election observers and intimidation of critics, these acts speak to managing electoral processes with the intent to achieve a specific outcome, victory for Suluhu and CCM. 

While Tanzanian scholars have been reluctant to be cited in this writing, it is also true that foreign thinkers, public intellectuals, and journalists have been loath to go to Tanzania, to cover what turned out to be chaotic elections.

This self-censorship speaks to the tyranny and fear that rules East Africa’s haven of peace. Even as Suluhu has bragged about peace in her country, it is manifest that it is negative peace. It lacks entrenchment in justice and rule of law. 

The whereabouts of Humphrey Polepole, Tanzania’s former ambassador to Cuba, are unknown. Polepole slowly gave up on Suluhu and eventually resigned as Ambassador to Cuba on July 13. Three days later, the State revoked his appointment.

His family reported soon after that strangers had visited his home and gone away with him, after a physical struggle. Today, the police have been slow in supplying any useful information on Polepole, despite repeated promises. 

In the coming days, Suluhu and CCM will have serious legitimacy issues to address both at the domestic and in international forums.

The deepening erosion of democratic governance, especially, could only breed deeper resentment and further instability.

The world will wait to see whether Suluhu will lean in to embrace reform, or whether she will double-down on stricter control. If abductions and disappearances continue, they could breed further resentment and unrest. This could morph into economic strain and an endless vicious cycle of crisis for the regime.

The battle ahead, accordingly, is between reform and control, even as authoritarian continuity seems to be the default option available to Suluhu.

The world will be wondering how a president who arrived on the scene with so much goodwill and promise ended up in these doldrums!

Dr Muluka is a Strategic Communications Advisor.