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Leaders & Politics

Tanzania Elections:

Magufuli wins, as

opposition protests President, John Magufuli and Opposition Leader,Tundu Lissu(FILE PHOTOS)

anzania’s President John Magufuli became Africa’s most controversial gagged the media and took away
T, 61,has won re-election with a sitting president. Recently, as the many freedoms that Tanzanians have
landslide victory in a poll that the COVID-19 pandemic raged across enjoyed over the years.
opposition has described as fraudulent. worldwide, he dismissed the global Although he portrayed himself as
In the presidential elections held 28, efforts in fighting the coronavirus, a virtuous democrat, he trampled
October, the president was declared calling it nothing more than a common on democratic space, curtailing the
the winner with an unprecedented cold; asking Tanzanians to go on with opposition, never allowing them to
12.5 million votes, representing 84% their lives as usual, thereby putting reach-out to the people. That he won an
of votes cast. The top opposition millions of his citizens at risk of obscene margin of 84% is a testimony
candidate Tundu Lissu received 1.9 contracting the disease, in the absence of the level to which democracy has
million, representing 13%. Lissu of any containment measures. retrogressed in the country.
earlier rejected the vote and called on Both domestically and internationally, In Zanzibar, the main opposition
the international community not to he attracts divided opinion, with his candidate, Maalim Seif Sharif of ACT-
recognize it. counter-parts in the EAC, having to Wazalendo, Mr Seif Sharif was arrested,
The opposition has alleged widespread learn to live with his erratic policies on the day of the election, shortly after
irregularities before and during the that at times are counter to the regional saying that the polls had been rigged
vote in the East African nation that protocols, with Tanzania is a signatory. and calling for mass protests. He was
some observers say has taken a sharp Behind President Magufuli, is one of later released on bail. Seif performed
turn away from democratic ideals in Africa’s longest-ruling party, Chama dismally getting only 19%, the least he
the past five years. Allegations include cha Mapinduzi (CCM) or ‘The was ever gotten in the last 3 elections
the rejection of thousands of election Party of the Revolution’, which has he has taken part.
observers, a massive slowdown in ruled the East African country since Mr Lissu, who was the candidate for
internet and text-messaging services independence in 1961. CCM, a party Chadema, said he would not accept
and ballot box stuffing. founded by the founding father of the the results saying: “it not an election by
The US embassy in Dar es Salaam country, Julius Kambarage Nyerere, both Tanzanian and international laws.
said that “irregularities and the no doubt commands respect locally It was just a gang of people who have
overwhelming margins of victory raise and globally; however, the party, just decided to misuse state machinery
serious doubts about the credibility and particularly, since the advent of to cling to power.” He alleged that
of the results... as well as concerns Mugufuli’s rule, it hs became more and ballot boxes were tampered with while
about the government of Tanzania’s more authoritarian his party representatives were not
commitment to democratic values”. President Magufuli began his first present.
Magufuli’s party, CCM, also won term by dramatically taking the fight In 2017, Mr. Lissu survived an
the voter on the semi-autonomous on corruption to the corrupt, in a assassination attempt, in a hail of
archipelago of Zanzibar, electing campaign he called tumbua majipu bullets outsides his house. He was
Hussein Mwinyi as president, declared ‘lance the boils’, this earned him to remain in a coma for months in a
the winner with 76% of the votes. the status of a populist, defending hospital in Nairobi and later Belgium,
President John Pombe Magufuli, who the downtrodden, the victims of where he was flown for emergency
came to power2005, on the platform of corruption, on whose behalf he treatment. He only returned to the
fighting corruption, has a over the years claimed to act. His leadership has country month to the elections.

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