What Next Following Tanzania’s “National Catastrophe”?

The unprecedented use of violence against opposition supporters and ordinary citizens has ruptured Tanzania’s image as an island of stability and an upholder of the rule of law—a crisis that will require active high-level mediation to resolve.

Tanzanian police enforce an unprecedented shutdown of transport, markets, the internet, and newspapers throughout the country.

Amid an atmosphere of ongoing intimidation and extremely limited access to information, Tanzania continues to pick up the pieces following the government of President Samia Suluhu Hassan’s precedent-shattering violent crackdown against protestors and ordinary citizens surrounding the country’s October 29 elections. The violence was accompanied by a government-imposed curfew and a shutdown of transport, markets, the internet, and newspapers—a first since independence.

Protests began the morning of the election in which major opposition candidates were barred from running and most election sites were quiet as voters boycotted the polls. Chants of “Hatutaki CCM” (“we don’t want Chama Cha Mapinduzi!”) rung out in some areas. Police subsequently fired live ammunition into the crowds—amplifying both fear and anger at the government’s heavy-handedness.

Many people were shot in their neighborhoods, markets, and even in the sanctuary of their homes. As families searched for bodies of loved ones,over 200 youth were charged with treason.

Tanzanians have experienced crises before—though never of this intensity or scale.

The leading opposition party, Chama Cha Demokrasia na Maendeleo (Chadema) said there wereno less than 800 people killedin the first 3 days alone. Diplomatic sources and civil society activists privately put the tally in the thousands with multiple reports of bodies piled up at hospitals not just in Dar es Salaam but alsoalong the coast, interior, north, and south.If confirmed, this death toll surpasses the casualties Tanzania suffered during Ugandan dictator Idi Amin’s invasion of Tanzania in 1978 and Tanzania’s subsequent toppling of his regime in 1979. To underscore the comparison, protestors have coined the phrase “Idi Amin Mama,” likening Suluhu to Amin.

Multiple reports suggest the attacks were aided by foreign mercenaries from neighboring countries who did not speak proper Kiswahili. Claims of possible collusion among neighboring governments echo a growing pattern of intraregionalimprisonments, abductions, and torture of Kenyan, Ugandan, and Tanzanian activistswho have shown solidarity with and offered legal services to colleagues facing trials on what are widely seen as politically motivated charges.

Suluhu was declared the winner on November 1 with 98 percent of the vote and an 88-percent turnout. The announced results ran counter to findings by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) which reported that the election was marked by “very low” turnout, “massive irregularities,” ballot stuffing, intimidation, and police brutality. It concluded the pollsfell short of SADC’s democratic principles. SADC observers were themselves harassed in Tanga and forced to delete evidence. The African Union (AU) was more scathing:  it found low turnout inallpolling stations, several empty ones, evidence of widespread intimidation tactics, pre-election abductions, and expulsion of observers during counting at some polling stations. It also noted that Tanzania’s institutions were “inadequate to address the challenges [to] the integrity of the election,” the harshest assessment in recent memory.

Even South Africa’s African National Congress (ANC), a staunch CCM ally, confirmed itcould not observe the pollsdue to a “breakdown in communications.” The European Union observer mission found the elections “neither free nor fair.”

The events are being described by many Tanzanians as “Msiba Mkuu ya Taifa letu Tunaiyopenda” (“The Great National Catastrophe that has Befallen the Nation We Dearly Love”).

Tanzanian police disperse protesters in Dar es Salaam on October 29, 2025.

Public access to Suluhu’s November 3 inauguration was restricted. Rather than the traditional public ceremony at Uhuru Stadium in Dar es Salaam, the inauguration took place at the secluded Dodoma military grounds.

Under Tanzania’s Constitution, election results cannot be challenged in court.

The reverberations from the government’s brazen actions to secure the desired electoral outcome are far from over, however. Rather than legitimating, the government’s heavy-handed electoral process hasset the country on highly unstable footing. This is unfamiliar territory for a society that has long enjoyed a reputation for political tolerance andethical, people-centered leadershipexemplified by Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere, the nation’s revered founding father.

For some, it marks Tanzania’s “loss of innocence.” A nation deeply respected in the region as a model for political civility is now mirroring the repression of its neighbors.

Though inconsistently displayed, the values and practices inherited from the Nyerere era have historically guided CCM actions at critical moments and distinguished it from peers who readily employ violence as a political tool. While CCM has held power in Tanzania since the Union of Tanganyika and Zanzibar in 1964, as recently as 2015, the opposition achieved 40 percent of the presidential vote and 45 percent of parliamentary seats.

From 2016 to 2020, under President John Magufuli, Tanzania shifted sharply, however.Public rallies were bannedto “crack down on troublemakers without mercy.” The CCM-dominated parliamentgranted him sweeping powers over civil society and commerce, banned live broadcasts of parliament, and passed laws closing media outlets. Journalists and activistshad passports confiscated and their citizenship questioned—unprecedented in Tanzania.

Rather than legitimating, the government’s heavy-handed electoral process has set the country on highly unstable footing.

In 2017,abductions and killing of government critics—unheard of until then—began, shaking the nation. These included the detention and killing of journalist Azory Gwanda, Chadema’s Daniel John and Godfrey Luena, and torture of critic Mdude Nyagali. A 2017 assassination attempt on leading opposition candidate Tindu Lissu left him riddled with 17 bullets. When religious leaders condemned this violence,their institutions were threatenedwith closure.

This pattern continued ahead of the 2020 polls with opposition parties effectively unable to campaign. The presidency warned that protesters would be “beaten like stray dogs,” while Magufuli declared, “let them demonstrate and they will see who I am.” CCM claimed 84 percent of the vote—a 30-point jump from 2015.

When Suluhu assumed office after Magufuli’s death in 2021, sheinitially reversed many repressive policies, unbanned rallies, invited exiles like Lissu to return, and initiated reforms. The 2025 electoral cycle was seen as atest of competing political norms in Tanzania. Would CCM revert to its long-established practices of moderation, or would it embrace the Magufuli tactics as its new normal?

The November 2024 local elections provided an early signal. CCM won those gubernatorial polls by a landslide after barring opposition candidates. Those polls were punctuated by the killing of Chadema’s Ali Mohamed Kibao, who wasabducted, tortured, and doused with acid—violence that Suluhu quickly condemned. Nonetheless, according to the Tanganyika Law Society,over 100 abductions have occurred under Suluhu’s watch.

The 2025 electoral cycle was seen as a test of competing political norms in Tanzania.

The trajectory of the 2025 presidential campaign followed suit. Leading opposition candidates—Chadema’s Tundu Lissu and Luhaga Mpina of Chama cha Wazalendo (ACT-Wazalendo)—were barred from the ballot in April and August, respectively. Lissu was jailed andcharged with treason for calling for electoral reforms. He faces the death penalty. Mpina was disqualified for refusing to sign an electoral code that omitted constitutional amendments to level the field. Lissu’s deputy, John Heche, was detained as he arrived to attend Lissu’s treason trial, days after being blocked from travelling to Kenya for the funeral of the late Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga in October.

All legal challenges to the lopsided electoral playing field were ignored, setting the stage for the October 2025 catastrophe. Even senior ruling CCM figures were targeted. Weeks before the polls, CCM insider and former Head of Party Ideology, Ambassador Humphrey Polepole, wasabducted after resigning as Ambassador to Cubaand criticizing Suluhu’s draconian tactics. His mother’s direct plea to President Suluhu—“If he is alive, bring him to me. If he is not, bring his body and let me bury my child myself”—captured the national mood. Polepole and his sister remain missing.

Corruption has been achronic problem in Tanzania for decades. Nyerere warned in 1995 that “Tanzanians are tired of corruption and want to see changes; if they don’t get them in CCM, they will get them outside CCM.”

Public anger toward CCM hasgrown steadily over corruption and widening economic inequality. Suluhu’s 2023 decision tohand key port operations in Dar es Salaam to Dubai-based DP Worldprovoked outrage and protests—the first since Magufuli’s era. Transport users have long protested the late delivery and poor functioning of the transit system, which they blame squarely on corruption. Similar anger met her award of the Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS) to another Dubai firm,sparking more protests in September 2025—with demonstrators shouting, “Just kill us, just kill us, we don’t want CCM!”

The CCM’s diminished capacity to restrain the executive has contributed to the growing sense of impunity.

The CCM’s diminished capacity to restrain the executive has contributed to the growing sense of impunity. Unprecedented internal purges under Magufuli—the “bulldozer”—and Suluhu worsened thefactions within the party, with some dissenters being labelled “wasaliti” (traitors) and subjected to punishment by the party’s feared security committee. Historically, the CCM Elders—a group of retired Tanzanian and Zanzibari presidents, vice presidents, and prime ministers—served as an independent internal check on the CCM’s Central Committee.

Fatma Karume, daughter of ex-Zanzibari President Amani Abeid Karume and granddaughter of Zanzibar’s founding leader, recalls how Nyerere’s successor, Ali Hassan Mwinyi, endured Nyerere’s caustic criticism in the Central Committee. Mwinyi’s successor, Benjamin Mkapa, faced similar criticism from Nyerere, Mwinyi, and former Zanzibari President Salmin Amour, and so on.

The Elders held CCM leaders accountable, instilled a tradition of power transfers and respect for term limits. Former Central Committee member Jenerali Ulimwengu recounts how they dissuaded Mwinyi from a third term: “Do not listen to those hooligans,” Nyerere reportedly told Mwinyi. “They want you to stay on not because they love you, but they themselves want to stay on. I handed the baton to you in 1985 and in 1995, you must pass it on to someone else, period.”

Over the years, the Elders were replaced with a smaller committee answerable to the CCM Chairperson, who also serves as President of Tanzania. This change stifled competition and empowered the executive to select Central Committee members and directly influence the selection of parliamentary candidates—further eliminating constraints within the CCM. The concentration of power enabled Suluhu to stake claim as the CCM standard bearer in the 2025 elections without holding a proper intraparty primary—a marked departure from past practices. This has angered some within the CCM, especially given that she gained the presidency following Magufuli’s death in office rather than from a CCM nomination.

Tanzanian plainclothes intelligence and uniformed police officers patrol the streets of Dar es Salaam.

Tanzania also faces fundamental divisions within its security sector. The Tanzanian Police Force is the country’s largest security unit with 45,000 personnel and is responsible for domestic security. It includes the Field Force Unit, responsible for crowd control and riots, the Criminal Investigation Department, which handles serious crimes and investigations, and the Special Anti-Robbery and Anti-Narcotics Unit, which focuses on organized crime. They are supported by the Tanzanian Intelligence and Security Service. As constraints on Tanzania’s executive have weakened since 2015, these services have become increasingly politicized, with some reportedly implicated in abductions and the growing use of violence against political opponents. It is these forces, likewise, that are believed to be responsible for the 2025 electoral violence.

The 23,000-strong Tanzania People’s Defence Force (TPDF) is largely focused on external threats. The TPDF has a long-established reputation for professionalism, competence, and restraint. Reports indicate that protestors fleeing the crackdown from other security services ran to the TPDF for protection—including to units deployed in Dodoma, Dar es Salaam, Mbeya, Arusha, Iringa, Morogoro, Tanga, Mwanza, Shinyanga, and other cities—effectively serving as safe havens for citizens fearing violence. The TPDF, reportedly, was not consulted regarding the deployment of irregular forces from neighboring countries into Tanzania to help put down the protests. These serious internal fissures continue to divide Tanzania’s security sector.

Tanzanians have experienced crises before—though never of this intensity or scale. The CCM has historically mitigated such crises by adhering to customary rules inherited from President Nyerere: tolerance for internal disagreements, political competition, and a focus on economic options for the poor. Commitment to these principles and shared national values have helped sustain stability. At the party’s Kivukoni Ideological School, now known as the Mwalimu Nyerere Memorial Academy (MNMA), party members learned that vibrant opposition was essential for accountability and renewal within the ruling party. They also learned aboutNyerere’s effort to nurture opposition partiesafter he left office in 1985.

The first major test came in 2001, when police violentlysuppressed protests in Zanzibar after the disputed 2000 polls, killing up to 35, injuring 600, and forcing thousands to flee abroad—a first in Tanzania.

Eight months of negotiations produced a political reconciliation agreement, popularly known as the Muafaka, a unity government between CCM and the Civic United Front (CUF), reforms, and an independent probe into the violence. When tensions resurfaced, the respected Mwalimu Nyerere Foundation partnered with South Africa’s African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD) to convene CCM and CUF parliamentarians. They were joined by negotiators from South Africa’s ANC, advisors for Nyerere and Mandela, and other senior figures including South Africa’s then Deputy Chief Justice Pius Langa, and former Tanzanian Prime Minister and Secretary General of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), Salim Ahmed Salim.

President Benjamin Mkapa welcomed this mediation and sent his administration’s most senior leaders. He later took full responsibility for the crisis, calling it the lowest point of his presidency and offering public regret.

Tanzania faces an unprecedented crisis that will require extraordinary measures to resolve.

The current crisis can draw on that legacy to undertake an inclusive national dialogue. Tanzania has unique attributes to facilitate such a process. First, thanks to independence-era policies, ethnicity is not a factor in governance like in many neighboring countries. Hence Tanzanians can focus squarely on the issues dividing them. Second, the military has demonstrated professionalism and restraint, maintaining the trust of citizens to create a safe environment for national dialogue. Third, Tanzania has respected elders like Joseph Butiku—Executive Director of the Mwalimu Nyerere Foundation and former senior aide to President Nyerere—Paul Kimiti, Joseph Sinde Warioba, Maria Kamm, Gertrude Mongella, Salim Ahmed Salim, and many others, who can nudge President Suluhu to deescalate and help steer Tanzania through this crisis. Tanzania’s religious leaders—Christian, Muslim, Hindu, and Bahai—are also highly respected and neutral and can reprise their role negotiating a new Muafaka.

A reconfigured Tanzanian negotiating mechanism can alsodraw lessons from Kenya’s 2007 post-election crisis mediation, when Ambassador Bethuell Kiplagat and General Lazaro Sumbeiywo convened the Concerned Citizens for Peace. Former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa, and other eminent African leaders joined the process that led to an agreement, the National Accord, which has guided Kenya’s politics since.

A viable political settlement can be framed around:

Given the gravity of the crisis and rupture of trust with the public, this crisis cannot be solved by CCM alone. In addition to respected Tanzanian personalities, SADC and the AU can appoint a high-level contact group to work with them. Former South African President, Thabo Mbeki, who recently visited Tanzania to pay respects to ANC fighters buried there, has the respect of all sides and could play a vital role in such a process. Tanzania’s international partners can build momentum by lending their political and technical support.

Tanzania faces an unprecedented crisis that will require extraordinary measures to resolve.

Based on reporting by ACSS