PREVIEW
Commonwealth peace bid unlikely to rescue reputation of Hassan over rights abuses
Five months after opposition to the election of Tanzania’s Samia Suluhu Hassan with 98% of the vote as President on 29 October escalated into deadly street clashes, Malawi’s former president Lazarus Chakwera has arrived in Dar es Salaam in a belated effort to mediate. The stand-off between the presidency and the opposition continues and rights groups accuse Tanzania’s security forces and shadowy militia forces of killing hundreds of civilians.
Chakwera was appointed as the Commonwealth’s Special Envoy last November, with a mandate to mediate between Hassan and opposition parties. He’s unlikely to see the opposition parties who were banned from standing (AC Vol 66 No 22, Cloud of blood and doubt hangs over Hassan’s victory). The initial plan when Chakwera was appointed was that he would immediately make a four-day trip to Tanzania but that was scuppered by Hassan’s officials.
Hassan has promised to launch inquiries and a designated ministry to promote youth employment and opportunities to assuage the anger of Gen Z activists. But there has been little action on the pledges.
Instead, Hassan has tightened her grip on power with a reshuffle that rewarded her own clique in the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi and clamped down further on press freedom (AC Vol 67 No 2, Hassan entrenches the securocrats and centralises control).
Chakwera’s arrival on 9 April was on the one-year anniversary of Chadema party leader Tundu Lissu’s arrest and imprisonment on treason charges. Lissu’s case is still stuck in court.
The government’s own Commission of Inquiry, which had originally been described as a ‘reconciliation commission’ by Hassan, is due to conclude its own work on 24 April but has so far refused to publish any preliminary findings. It had initially been set a February deadline to present its findings (Dispatches, 12/1/26, Samia Suluhu lashes out at journalists amid growing criticism of state violence).
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