Polls open in Tanzania’s election as key opponents barred

President Samia Suluhu Hassan is expected to triumph the predetermination arsenic the 2 main absorption parties person been barred from taking part.

Polls person opened successful Tanzania for statesmanlike and parliamentary elections being held without the starring absorption party, arsenic the authorities has been violently cracking down connected dissent up of the vote.

More than 37 cardinal registered voters volition formed their ballots from 7am section clip (4:00 GMT) until 4pm (13:00 GMT). The predetermination committee says it volition denote the results wrong 3 days of predetermination day.

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President Samia Suluhu Hassan, 65, is expected to triumph aft candidates from the 2 starring absorption parties were barred from standing.

The person of Tanzania’s main absorption party, Chadema’s Tundu Lissu, is on proceedings for treason, charges helium denies. The electoral committee disqualified Chadema successful April aft it refused to motion an electoral codification of conduct.

The committee besides disqualified Luhaga Mpina, the campaigner for the 2nd largest absorption party, ACT-Wazalendo, aft an objection from the lawyer general, leaving lone candidates from insignificant parties taking connected Hassan.

In summation to the statesmanlike election, voters volition take members of the country’s 400-seat parliament and a president and politicians successful the semiautonomous Zanzibar archipelago.

Hassan’s governing enactment Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM), whose predecessor enactment led the conflict for independency for mainland Tanzania successful the 1950s, has dominated nationalist authorities since its founding successful 1977.

Hassan, 1 of conscionable 2 pistillate heads of authorities successful Africa, won plaudits aft coming to powerfulness successful 2021 for easing repression of governmental opponents and censorship that proliferated nether her predecessor, John Magufuli, who died successful office.

But successful the past 2 years, rights campaigners and absorption candidates person accused the authorities of unexplained abductions of its critics.

She maintains her authorities is committed to respecting quality rights and past twelvemonth ordered an probe into the reports of abductions. No authoritative findings person been made public.

Pupils locomotion past a billboard for Tanzanian statesmanlike campaigner Samia Suluhu Hassan, of the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi party, successful Arusha, Tanzania, connected October 8, 2025 [AP]

Stifling opposition

UN quality rights experts person called connected Hassan’s authorities to instantly halt the enforced disappearance of governmental opponents, quality rights defenders and journalists “as a instrumentality of repression successful the electoral context”.

They said much than 200 cases of enforced disappearance had been recorded successful Tanzania since 2019.

A caller Amnesty International study elaborate a “wave of terror” including “enforced disappearance and torture … and extrajudicial killings of absorption figures and activists”.

Human Rights Watch said “the authorities person suppressed the governmental absorption and critics of the ruling party, stifled the media, and failed to guarantee the electoral commission’s independence”.

US crisis-monitoring radical Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED) said the ruling CCM was intent connected maintaining its presumption arsenic the “last hegemonic liberation enactment successful confederate Africa” and avoiding the caller electoral pressures faced by counterparts successful South Africa, Namibia and Zimbabwe.

In September 2024, the assemblage of Ali Mohamed Kibao, a subordinate of the secretariat of the absorption Chadema party, was recovered aft 2 equipped men forced him disconnected a autobus heading from Dar-es-Salaam to the northeastern larboard metropolis of Tanga.

There are fears that adjacent members of CCM are being targeted. Humphrey Polepole, a erstwhile CCM spokesperson and ambassador to Cuba, went missing from his location this period aft resigning and criticising Hassan. His household recovered humor stains successful his home.

The Tanganyika Law Society says it has confirmed 83 abductions since Hassan came to power, with different 20 reported successful caller weeks.

Protests are uncommon successful Tanzania, successful portion acknowledgment to a comparatively steadfast economy, which grew by 5.5 percent past year, according to the World Bank, connected the backmost of beardown agriculture, tourism and mining sectors.

Hassan has promised large infrastructure projects and cosmopolitan wellness security successful a bid to triumph implicit voters.