Samia Suluhu Hassan is the president of Tanzania and chairperson of Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM). A Muslim from the semi-autonomous archipelago of Zanzibar, whose population is about 3% of the national total, she has no base within the party and little charisma. She became president only after the death of her autocratic predecessor, John Magufuli, which caused her elevation from vice-president in 2021. She first styled herself as a liberal-minded reformer, welcoming opponents home from exile and mending ties with foreign investors.
It was clear long before the October 2025 election that Mrs Samia was no moderate technocrat. A promised review of the constitution, which gives the president enormous power, quickly stalled. Following repeated reshuffles, she is "increasingly in command of every arm of the regime", according to Dan Paget, a British academic specialising in Tanzania. She has shored up her position by surrounding herself with Zanzibaris, family and loyalists. She appointed her daughter as deputy minister of education and installed her son-in-law as minister of health.
Her government barred Chadema, the main opposition party, from competing in the October 2025 election, and put its leader, Tundu Lissu, on trial for treason. Mrs Samia claimed 98% of the vote; an observer mission from the Southern African Development Community said that "in most areas, voters could not express their democratic will." Scores of critics, including a CCM bigwig and a Catholic priest, disappeared over the course of 2025; many are feared dead.
After the results, the largest protests in Tanzania's history erupted. Rather than make concessions, Mrs Samia's government unleashed a post-election crackdown that may have killed many hundreds, and perhaps thousands. Paget reckons the last time mainland Tanzania experienced such brutality was under German colonial rule more than a century ago. Her inauguration on November 3rd 2025 was moved from a stadium in Dar es Salaam to a military parade ground in Dodoma; the public was banned and only four other African leaders turned up. Protesters call her "Idi Amin Mama" after the late Ugandan dictator. The EU has frozen aid. America is reviewing bilateral relations.
An official commission appointed to investigate the post-election killings acknowledged 518 deaths but shamelessly distorted what happened, blaming "trained agitators" helped by unspecified "outside forces" and praising police restraint. The full findings remain secret. Even ruling-party members privately call the inquiry's findings ridiculous. A pall of fear hangs over Tanzania; ordinary people fear discussing the massacre, opposition politicians remain imprisoned, and the media are muzzled.
America has made it known to Mrs Samia that its support for her is based on her ability to make progress on three projects: the Kabanga nickel mine (majority-owned by Lifezone Metals), a graphite mine and a liquefied natural gas project involving ExxonMobil.
Mrs Samia's government sees high growth as the key to maintaining power. Tanzania has achieved annual GDP growth of 6% on average for the past two decades, but with the population growing at nearly 3% each year, officials acknowledge that is not enough. Too few young people have formal jobs. The government's priority since October has been to reassure existing investors and speed up negotiations over a long-delayed liquefied natural gas plant, on which a final investment decision is expected in 2026. Corruption is widely thought to have increased under Mrs Samia. Foreign firms complain of shake-downs.
What passes for optimism is most often the effect of an intellectual error.