Tanzania’s Samia Hassan secures 98% of votes to win re-election

Tanzanian President Samia Hassan has been declared winner of the country’s presidential election.

Hassan garnered an overwhelming 98 percent of the votes, dominating nearly all 32 million ballots in the poll conducted on Wednesday.

“I hereby announce Samia Suluhu Hassan as the winner of the presidential election under the Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) party,” Jacobs Mwambegele, the nation’s electoral chief, said on Saturday morning.

International observers had raised concerns over the opacity of the electoral process and the widespread chaos that has reportedly claimed over 500 lives and left many more injured.

Several opposition leaders were reportedly disqualified from participating in the election.

Chadema, the country’s largest opposition party, boycotted the election after its leader Tundu Lissu was imprisoned ahead of the polls.

Lissu is facing treason charges after calling for electoral reforms.

Luhaga Mpina, the presidential candidate for the Alliance for Change and Transparency (ACT-Wazalendo), the second-largest opposing party, was disqualified by the electoral umpire.

This is Hassan’s first presidential election. The 65-year-old became the East African nation’s leader in 2021 following the death of then-sitting President John Magufuli. Hassan was vice-president at the time.

She was initially lauded for a warmer, friendlier leadership style, which contrasted with Magufuli’s authoritarian clampdown on dissent and controversial posture during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Hassan would later initiate reforms that reopened Tanzania to foreign investors, restored donor relations, and mollified the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank.

However, critics have accused Hassan’s government of unexplained abductions of opposing figures.