PREVIEW
Opposition leader’s acquittal on treason charges fails to resolve clash over his detention as lawyers appeal against conviction for ‘incitement’
Opposition leader Tundu Lissu escaped the death penalty but was instead found guilty of incitement – a confected charge which he did not initially face – as Tanzania’s government came under mounting pressure not to execute him. These twists and turns in the case exploded any claims of judicial independence from the increasingly authoritarian regime under President Samia Suluhu Hassan.
A panel of three judges at the High Court in Dar es Salaam on 6 November acquitted Lissu of the more serious offence of treason, which carried a death sentence.
The conviction was as manufactured as the charges. Lissu was charged with treason after urging voters to boycott the October 2025 general elections if opposition candidates were not allowed to stand (Dispatches, 2/11/26, Lissu treason verdict puts President Samia’s political record on trial & Dispatches 14/4/25, Banning opposition leader Tundu Lissu from elections confirms Samia’s authoritarian shift). In the event, President Hassan was elected with a fraudulent 98% of the vote on an equally fraudulent 85% turnout.
The incitement conviction will carry a four-year jail sentence but leaves plenty of questions. Lissu has requested bail while he appeals to the Court of Appeal. Even if his appeal fails, Lissu, who has been in jail since April 2025, might be released early should the government come under enough pressure.
‘The offence of incitement is one that you, honourable judges, have manufactured. You have created an offence that did not exist, and you have done so on political directives,’ Lissu told the court.
Lissu’s plight was not on the main agenda when Commonwealth leaders at their summit in Antigua on 1-4 November. But the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG) had earlier issued an ultimatum to Dodoma to end Lissu’s detention, convene multi-party talks and launch an independent investigation into the violence around the October 2025 election which President Hassan’s government concedes killed more than 500 civilians (AC Vol 67 No 22, Commonwealth blinks on Tanzania over Lissu and poll violence).
In the week ending 7 November, the annual governance reports published by the Mo Ibrahim Foundation warned that East Africa faces a rising tide of authoritarianism, pointing to the arrests, intimidation and killing of opposition activists as part of a pattern of political violence in Tanzania and Uganda.
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