PREVIEW
Commonwealth leaders meet as opposition leader’s case reaches finale and victims’ families demand accountability for election violence
Opposition leader Tundu Lissu ended a hunger strike last week after prison authorities allowed him to meet privately with his lawyer Rugemeleza Nshala ahead of a judgement on the treason charges against him which is due on 6 November (AC Vol 67 No 17, Opposition leader Lissu turns the tables on President Hassan).
Lissu, who survived an assassination attempt by former president John Magufuli’s security officers in 2017, was jailed in April 2025 after urging voters to boycott the October general elections if opposition candidates were not allowed to stand.
President Samia Suluhu Hassan’s government charged him with treason and then cracked down on civil society groups and pro-democracy activists supporting Lissu then attending his trial (AC Vol 67 No 3, Opposition solidarity goes regional & Vol 66 No 13, As protests mount, state repression goes regional).
Ahead of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Antigua on 1-4 November, some officials suggested that Lissu’s fate – which could be the death penalty – will depend on how much pressure President Hassan comes under from other Commonwealth leaders.
The precedents are not good. In November 1995, Commonwealth leaders appealed to General Sani Abacha’s military regime in Nigeria to commute the death sentence on Ogoni activist Ken Saro Wiwa and eight others. Abacha ignored the pleas and proceeded with the executions prompting the Commonwealth to suspend Nigeria’s membership.
Lissu’s Chama cha Demokrasia na Maendeleo (Chadema) announced a week-long period of mourning starting on 29 October to mark the state’s violent suppression of protests during last year’s elections from which opposition parties were banned. Police and soldiers opened fire on demonstrators after President Hassan was declared the winner with 97.7% of the vote.
A government-appointed inquiry found that at least 518 people were killed in the violence that followed the vote, though it blamed protestors rather than state authorities or the police. The real death toll is believed to have been far higher – Chadema has estimated the death toll at about 2,000, though the UN and other international organisations have been unable to verify this figure.
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