The blood-soaked election of Samia Suluhu Hassan as Tanzania’s president with 97% of the vote has come at a high price, with thousands of her citizens dead, maimed or injured and her country’s economy under threat.
But, if there can be a silver lining to events this tragic, it is this: so great was the shiver from this president’s greed and violence that it ran up spines in the African Union (AU) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC). Both were moved to declare her return to power a travesty.
AU and SADC election observer missions have for decades traipsed about Africa in their khakhi vests pretending to be guardians of democracy. But, instead of calling out regimes from Angola to Zimbabwe for their election-rigging, they have offered some polite criticism among effusive adoration and then allowed the whole rotten edifice to persist by proposing no action.
Much of this occurred in the spirit of the old Organisation of African Unity, whose founding charter was centred less on people than on leaders, declaring at the outset: “We, the Heads of African States and Governments ….” Their commitment to “the inalienable right of all people to control their own destiny … [and of the] fact that freedom, equality, justice and dignity are essential objectives for the achievement of the legitimate aspirations of the African peoples” was focused less on the nature of African rule, than outside powers.
That priority and sentiment have largely, until now, endured.
In Angola, where an independent civic voter count and the opinion of diplomats and others with their ears to the ground indicated that, rather than winning, the MPLA’s João Lourenço lost the 2022 election to his rival Adalberto Costa Junior of Unita, the SADC observer mission said there were a few minor incidents (such as judges clearly being in the sway of the state), but all was good.
A little bolder
The SADC report on the Zimbabwe election of August 2023 was a little bolder. It is noted in one of the great instances of understatement that “some stakeholders expressed the view that the government compromised the judiciary” and that “the judiciary recently received large financial and material incentives”.
It also observed that a “quasi security intelligence organisation” called Forever Associates Zimbabwe (FAZ) was “deployed to wards and around 36,000 villages”.
Other problems include the coercion of Zimbabwe Republic Police who were “coerced” into voting for Zanu-PF “in the presence of their supervisors, thus compromising the secrecy of the vote”, and that state-owned media wholly ignored the opposition. Polling stations were moved about willy-nilly.
The mission concluded: “The SEOM noted that, as detailed in sections 6 and 7 of this report, some aspects of the Harmonised Elections fell short of the requirements of the Constitution of Zimbabwe, the Electoral Act, and the SADC Principles and Guidelines Governing Democratic Elections (2021).”
This represented an uncomfortable moment for the SADC leadership, used to ripple-free election observation. It took some deft footwork, postponed meetings and wilful ignorance to make this report disappear without further action.
Running parallel to the SADC is a fraternal body comprising the region’s “liberation movements – South Africa’s ANC, Zimbabwe’s Zanu-PF, Tanzania’s Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM), the Mozambique Liberation Front (FRELIMO), the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), and Namibia’s South West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO).
Facing declining voting fortunes and criticism over the erosion of democracy, the embattled liberation movements got together for a summit in Johannesburg in July 2025.
Set the scene
The ANC hosts set the scene, hailing “landmark policies on land reform, education, housing, infrastructure and social protection.”
“However, these gains now face erosion due to renewed imperial pressures, economic crises, and attempts at neo-colonial interference. The Summit provides a united platform to confront these threats and consolidate progressive regional responses grounded in Pan-Africanism, internationalism and multilateralism.”
It was classic populism.
Mysterious external forces (imperial pressure and neo-colonial interference) were to blame for the parlous state of governance and economic stagnation in the sub-region. Despite all these parties ruling unfettered for decades, deciding on budgets, formulating policy and populating the civil service with chosen cadres, they were still somehow the victims of the ghosts of the past.
The summit would help these parties “confront the future together,” which was interesting wording. Enemies are confronted, opportunities are embraced. Was the future an enemy rather than an opportunity for progress?
In the case of Tanzania’s CCM, the future was, indeed, bleak. After promising reforms, its President, Samia Suluhu Hassan, made a 180-degree turn to implement a programme of repression not seen in the nation for decades, earning the sobriquet ‘Idi Amin Mama’ after the Ugandan proto-dictator.
Growing tide of represssion
Unsurprisingly, given the CCM’s brand of corruption and lack of delivery to Tanzania’s burgeoning Gen Z cohort, the leader of the official opposition, Chadema, Tundu Lissu, was gaining ground as he campaigned against this growing tide of repression, drawing popular support from Tanzanians who had seen one-party rule before and did not want to see it again. An estimated 70% of Tanzania’s population of 70 million is under 30 years old.
Lissu was arrested and tried for treason because he had complained that the election would not be free and fair. He was incarcerated on death row in a Dar es Salaam prison while the sham trial dragged on. Other leaders of his organisation, such as John Heche, were detained without trial.
The election was boycotted, and deserted polling stations were seen by observers. Protesters took to the streets and were met with a brutal security force response, leaving thousands dead according to estimates by Human Rights Watch.
But Hassan was unmoved. She proceeded with the old playbook, expecting a slap on the wrist and a bit of sweeping under the carpet from her friends in the SADC and the AU. She went ahead and announced that the election was peaceful except for a few incidents and that she had won an astonishing 97,95% of the vote with an even more extraordinary 87% turnout in a country where just over half of voters pitched up in the last election in 2020.
But then an astonishing thing happened. The SADC observer mission issued its preliminary report in which it declared the election a sham.
“It is the SEOM’s tentative conclusion that, in most areas, voters could not express their democratic will. Overall, the 2025 General Election in the United Republic of Tanzania fell short of the requirements of the SADC Principles and Guidelines Governing Democratic Elections.”
The AU observer report was even more critical. “The Mission concludes that the 2025 Tanzania General Elections did not comply with AU principles, normative frameworks, and other international obligations and standards for democratic elections,” it said.
“Ballot stuffing”
The AU observers said they had witnessed “ballot stuffing”, people being issued multiple papers to vote and the absence of party agents in polling stations. Its observers were asked to leave polling stations during the counting.
The significance of this moment should not be lost. The Tanzanian election bloodshed and vote-rigging were being called out by Africans, not by the ghostly “imperial” forces. Incumbency was no longer a guarantee of diplomatic protection.
For the first time, African multilateral bodies have sided with the people of Africa, who overwhelmingly favour democracy, as surveys have routinely proven.
The real test of these powerful African statements on democracy and elections is yet to come. The SADC and the AU must still meet and decide what action should follow the reports of their observers.
Will they declare this election invalid and demand an end to the bloody and repressive policies of Tanzania’s illegitimate government? Will they demand a re-run? Will they try and put together a Government of National Unity, a typical response when faced, as Thabo Mbeki was in Zimbabwe in 2008, with an uncomfortable rejection of a liberation movement? Or will they once again find a way to postpone, defer and dilute the stand their brave observers have taken?
The credibility of the AU and SADC and their alignment to the interests of ordinary Africans, not simply their leadership, will be shaped by this next step.
[Imag: https://cihrs.org/tanzania-civil-society-groups-express-concern-over-rapid-decline-in-human-rights/?lang=en]
The views of the writers are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR.
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