This woman Suluhu: From 'gracious mama' to agent of fear

As thousands protested in the streets across major cities in Tanzania, it became increasingly clear how far besieged President Samia Suluhu, the first woman to hold the high office, had fallen.

Resentment at her administration, criticised as autocratic, has been simmering for months before the defining elections held on Wednesday, whose result now hangs in the balance.

Suluhu’s administration has jailed critics – who include the most formidable challenger for the presidency, Tundu Lissu, who faces treason charges – and abducted others. The whereabouts of some of them are still unknown.

The state has also cracked down on sections of the clergy, shutting down a mega church with multiple branches, whose leader had challenged Suluhu’s policies. Similarly, her government has cracked down on media freedoms and is currently denying access to international outlets interested in covering the East African nation’s recent elections.

Reports suggest that local media houses have been barred from covering the protests, amid an internet shutdown and a curfew in Dar es Salaam, the country’s largest city.

Owing to these and other atrocities, Suluhu has been called names on social media, such as “Idi Amin Mama,” which equates her to the Ugandan dictator Idi Amin Dada, who ruled his nation with an iron fist in the 1970s.

The name starkly contrasts the more endearing reference of “Mama (Mother)” that greeted the 65-year-old’s ascension to the presidency in 2021, following the death of President John Magufuli, a controversial populist who was widely criticised as a dictator.

Magufuli contributed to shrinking the democratic space in Tanzania, arresting critics and curtailing press freedoms. Lissu suffered an assassination attempt in 2017. The vocal critic of Magufuli’s was shot 17 times and secured treatment in Kenya before leaving to spend more than two years in exile in Belgium.

He only returned to Tanzania after Magufuli's death, and only after some convincing from Suluhu, who was then seemingly keen to be seen as embracing civil rights, that it was safe to return home. The two met in Belgium in 2022, an act meant to express Suluhu’s departure from Magufuli’s strong-armed rule. And in 2023, she would lift a ban on opposition rallies that had lasted for six years.

Earlier in her presidency, Suluhu, Tanzania’s sixth president, had implemented restrictions to cut the spread of the coronavirus, whose existence and threat Magufuli had denied, and announced that her government would champion reform.

“She was like a breath of fresh air,” Peter Kagwanja, a professor of politics, international law and history, said during an interview on Citizen TV on Thursday. “She was received well with her Four Rs reforms (Reconciliation, Resilience, Reforms and Rebuilding), which were also embraced by the opposition.”

Calm in demeanour, she fit the description of “Mama.” However, according to political scientist Amukowa Anangwe, who spent 12 years teaching at the University of Dodoma, fate dealt Suluhu the wrong cards.

“Being that she is not from mainland Tanganyika, which produces Tanzania’s president, she began on the wrong foot,” said Prof Anangwe. “That notwithstanding, she would have endeared herself to the people like Magufuli did with his populist measures, which were seen as pro-people and aimed at seeking validation.”

It did not take long for the mask that critics have accused her of wearing to fall off. Indeed, her government would have a rethink of the freedoms it said it would protect, with crackdowns on dissent ensuing.

There were abductions and killings of dissidents. In October last year, a major newspaper outlet had its online licences suspended after publishing an advert that depicted Suluhu watching news of the abductions and killings of government critics on different TV outlets.

By that time, the state had already banned two rallies by the Lissu-led Chama cha Demokrasia na Maendeleo (Chadema) and arrested its leaders and supporters.

Ali Mohamed Kibao, a member of Chadema’s secretariat, had been killed and doused in acid a month earlier, two days after he had been abducted by armed men in Dar es Salaam. Others were killed in the months that followed.

Ahead of last Wednesday’s elections, there had been concerns about rights abuses, manifest in the continued abductions and arrest of critics. They include former Tanzanian ambassador to Cuba Humphrey Polepole, a vocal critic of Suluhu’s, who was abducted last month at his residence, Rogers Yohana and an activist identified as Ramso, among others.

The state had also cleared the re-election path by jailing Lissu, who faces treason charges, and blocking the candidature of Luhaga Mpina, another major opposition candidate from the Alliance for Change and Transparency – Wazalendo (ACT-Wazalendo) party.

Several civil society groups across the region have faulted these acts, as has the European Parliament, which bashed the recent sham elections.

“If you are a keen observer of the Tanzanian situation (you will know) this is not news, and it is not over yet,” Prof Kagwanja said of the simmering disenchantment in Dodoma, adding that he had observed it since President Jakaya Kikwete’s tenure. “From that time… to now, we have seen a downward spiral, not just of democracy, but it is a country hurtling down towards autocracy.”

The wave of protests that has now lasted three days came after an uneasy calm, which saw Suluhu draw pressure from rights groups across East Africa. The groups were instrumental in the mobilisation for the protests planned for the polling day, which had been dismissed as unlikely to happen owing to the firm hand with which Suluhu has ruled Tanzania.

Indeed, her government blocked activists from attending Lissu’s trial in May. Kenyan activist Boniface Mwangi and Ugandan Agather Atuhaire were abducted and tortured during that period. They claimed to have been sexually assaulted. Mwabili Mwagodi, another Kenyan activist, was abducted and reportedly tortured in July. All their abductions happened in Tanzania. At the time, Suluhu warned the activists against exporting the “bad habits” to her country.

Dodoma was also accused of being involved in the abduction of Tanzanian activist Maria Sarungi Tsehai, a vocal critic of Suluhu’s, earlier this year in Nairobi, in a string of cross-border kidnappings that have persisted in the region for months. Kenyan political activists Bob Njagi and Nicholas Oyoo were abducted in Uganda early last month and have remained missing since.

Signs that Suluhu was bound to lean towards strong-armed rule were evident from how she dispensed with competition within the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) party, argued Prof Anangwe.

“The person who was to take over was Kassim Majaliwa, the prime minister, who comes from mainland Tanganyika. When Suluhu took over, she got rid of those who could get in her way, and you could see that in how Majaliwa was pressured to resign,” he said.

Majaliwa, Tanzania’s prime minister since 2015, announced this year that he would not be seeking to retain his Ruangwa parliamentary seat, meaning he could not be appointed back to the premiership.

“CCM subscribes to the concept of democratic centralisation… and has its consultative mechanisms. Suluhu disrupted all that and turned herself into a one-woman show, and that is why there are officials within CCM who don’t support her,” added Prof Anangwe.

Suluhu’s apparent fall from grace has also highlighted the dwindling support of the ruling CCM, which has existed since 1997 under the leadership of founding President Julius Nyerere. The party, which initially championed a socialist ideology dubbed ‘Ujamaa’, has faced widespread criticism from scholars, opposition figures and artistes over the years, with such voices often silenced.

In his song Mpende Adui Yako, Tanzanian gospel musician Faustin Munishi argues that the party’s policies are outdated and that it has nothing new to offer the citizenry.
“Sera zake zimeharibu hii nchi na Ujamaa umeshindwa kabisa (Its policies have ruined this nation, with Ujamaa failing completely),” sings Munishi. “Siwarudishe madarakani kabisa (Don’t re-elect them to power).”

Prof Anangwe argued that CCM’s policies, which he said were pegged on “Nyerere’s benign psychological authoritarianism as he was the know-it-all,” were bound to anger the masses in urban areas, where he said the party had lost ground.

“People in urban areas feel the pinch harder than those in villages,” he said. “They are more affected by a high cost of living and unemployment.”

Suluhu, an economist by training, oversees a struggling economy that, like many African nations, cannot find jobs for its ballooning youthful population. She has held different ministerial portfolios in Zanzibar and Tanzania before she became vice president in 2015. She also served as Member of Parliament for Makunduchi in Zanzibar between 2010 and 2015.