Tanzania: When Stability Turns Deadly.

 

When elections deliver 98% and dissent delivers funerals, democracy is already dying—Tanzania now faces its most perilous hour since independence.

I have watched power in Africa long enough to know the smell of it when it turns sour. It starts with applause. It ends with gunfire. Tanzania, once the quiet diplomat of East Africa, now walks with a limp and a loaded rifle. Don’t welcome Africa’s newest despot. Samia Suluhu Hassan has caused Tanzania’s most dangerous crisis since independence.

Chama Cha Mapinduzi has ruled Tanzania since 1961. That is 65 years of unbroken control. Longer than any ruling party in Africa. Under Julius Nyerere, the founding father, millions were forced into collective farms under the policy of ujamaa. It was sold as African socialism. It delivered shortages, inefficiency and economic collapse. By the early 1980s, inflation had soared above 30%, growth had stalled, and Tanzania had to turn to the IMF. When Nyerere stepped down in 1985, CCM reinvented itself. It embraced a flawed but competitive democracy. It allowed opposition parties. It opened markets. For decades, Tanzania became the poster child for slow, steady stability.

Average GDP growth over the past 20 years has hovered around 6%. Investors came. Tourists came. Aid flowed. Afrobarometer polling in 2024 still showed CCM as the most popular party. Tanzania looked like the calm cousin in a rough neighborhood.

Then came October.

An election that should have been routine exploded into the first mass protests in mainland Tanzania’s history. The country has a population of more than 70m. It is not a small island state. When anger erupts at that scale, it shakes the ground. State security forces responded with bullets. Hundreds, possibly thousands, were killed. The exact number is unclear. That alone tells you everything. In stable democracies, body counts are counted. In broken regimes, they are buried.

And as people died in the streets, Samia Suluhu Hassan claimed 98% of the vote.

Ninety-eight percent. In a competitive system. In 2026. That number does not whisper legitimacy. It screams fraud. Even dictators in the 1970s blushed at figures like that.

Dan Paget, a scholar of Tanzanian politics, has said that the last time mainland Tanzania experienced brutality on this scale was under German colonial rule more than 100 years ago. Let that sink in. A country that survived colonialism, Cold War politics, and regional wars without mass bloodshed has now drawn blood from its own citizens.

Samia came to power in 2021 after John Magufuli died. Magufuli was autocratic, yes, but he wrapped himself in populist nationalism. He cut waste, fought some forms of corruption, and cultivated an image as a bulldozer for the common man. Samia styled herself as the opposite. She spoke softly. She welcomed back exiles. She reopened space for media. She mended ties with Western investors. Many Tanzanians believed she was a liberal reformer.

I did not.

When a leader promises constitutional reform and then quietly shelves it, I take note. Tanzania’s constitution gives the president enormous power. The promised review stalled. Opposition parties threatened to boycott the election. The state responded not with dialogue but with arrests. Tundu Lissu, the most prominent opposition figure, was arrested and charged with treason. Treason is not a parking ticket. It carries the possibility of death. He remains behind bars.

In 2025, critics disappeared. A CCM bigwig vanished. A Catholic priest vanished. Scores of others were taken. Many are feared dead. When disappearances become routine, fear becomes policy.

Some once argued that Samia, a Muslim from Zanzibar, which accounts for about 3% of Tanzania’s population, was forced to rely on hardliners in the party and security services. They said she was weak. That she had no base. That she was cornered.

But after repeated cabinet reshuffles, she now commands every arm of the regime. Diplomats in Dar es Salaam say she has surrounded herself with Zanzibaris, family and loyal newcomers. Her daughter is now deputy minister of education. Her son-in-law is minister of health. When blood ties replace merit, the state becomes a family business.

And the world is watching.

The EU has frozen aid. The United States is reviewing bilateral relations, citing concerns over churches and the treatment of investors. Tanzania relies heavily on foreign capital and development finance. In 2023, foreign direct investment inflows were about $1bn, modest but vital. If investors fear instability, that money dries up fast.

Yet the government’s first instinct after the crackdown was not remorse but reassurance. Reassure investors. Protect existing capital. Speed up talks on a long-delayed liquefied natural gas project. A final investment decision is expected this year. The message is clear: business first, bodies later.

But growth alone cannot silence anger. Tanzania’s population grows at nearly 3% per year. That means the economy must grow above that rate just to keep incomes steady. At 6% GDP growth, per capita gains are thin. Youth unemployment and underemployment remain high. Too few young people have formal jobs. When they are jobless, they are restless. As one minister admitted, they are easily “triggered” into protest.

China is often cited as a model. After the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, China doubled down on growth. It delivered decades of rapid expansion, lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty. But Tanzania is not China. It lacks the industrial base, the scale, and the global leverage Beijing wielded. You cannot copy and paste history.

Meanwhile, corruption is said to be rising. Business experts in Dar es Salaam speak of rent-seeking everywhere. Foreign firms complain of shake-downs. A Western diplomat put it bluntly: things are better for corrupt oligarchs. Not for investors.

I have heard this script before. First comes centralization. Then comes repression. Then comes economic favoritism for insiders. Finally comes the claim that stability requires strong hands. When the drumbeat of fear grows louder, liberty slips out the back door.

Some criticism of Samia is fueled by misogyny and Islamophobia. That is real and ugly. But stripping away prejudice does not erase policy. The crisis is not about gender. It is about governance. It is about the gap between promise and practice.

CCM has survived because it adapts. After economic collapse in the 1980s, it reformed. After political pressure in the 1990s, it opened space. It has been a strange beast, yes, but a flexible one. Now it faces an inflection point. Another uprising could be catastrophic. A former minister has warned that unless security forces show humanity, CCM will be removed from power.

A coup within the party is possible. Internal rebellion has toppled leaders before in African ruling parties. Outsiders cannot know how deep dissatisfaction runs within CCM. But when elites begin whispering, the clock starts ticking.

Tanzania was long known for stability in a volatile region. It mediated conflicts in Burundi. It hosted refugees. It avoided the coups and civil wars that scarred neighbors. Now that reputation is cracking.

I do not celebrate instability. I fear it. A nation of 70m cannot afford chaos. But stability built on fear is a house of cards. A 98% victory is not strength. It is insecurity dressed up as triumph. Do not welcome Africa’s newest despot. Do not clap for a leader who trades reform for repression and calls it order. Tanzania stands at its most dangerous crossroads since 1961. The bullets of October did more than kill protesters. They shattered a myth. The myth that CCM’s long rule guaranteed peace.

History teaches a brutal lesson. When power refuses to bend, it eventually breaks. And when it breaks, it rarely does so quietly.

 

For readers interested in a separate line of thought, the titles in my “Brief Book Series” are available on Google Play. Read them here on Google Play: Brief Book Series.