Tanzania’s opposition denounces 700 deaths in two days of protests against electoral fraud

The numbers are alarming. Tanzania’s main opposition party, Chadema, denounced this Friday the death of around 700 people in the context of the protests that broke out on Wednesday following the holding of the general elections. Elections overshadowed by allegations of fraud against the president Samia Solution Hassan and his Party of the Revolution (CCM), which has ruled the country with an iron fist since its independence in 1961.

Chadema, excluded from the electoral process, has at least 350 dead in Dar es Salaam and more than 200 in the city of Mwanza, on the shores of Lake Victoria. “Our message to the Government is to stop killing our protesters,” the group’s spokesperson declared this Friday. John Kitoka. “End police brutality.”

The figures are large, but credible despite the difficulty of comparing them due to the internet outages that have occurred since election day.

Protesters burned government offices and other public buildings, looted voting centers and tore down posters of Hassan and his party. Authorities have established a curfew in Dar es Salaam, but the heavy police and military presence in the country’s economic capital has not deterred protesters.

Protests remain active in the neighborhoods surrounding the country’s largest city. The volume of demonstrations has decreased as a result of police repression, but Kitoka called this Friday to continue “until our demands for electoral reforms are met.”

Seven hundred dead are a lot of dead. The Government of Samia Suluhu speaks, however, of some “isolated incidents”. The head of the Tanzanian People’s Defense Forces, Jacob John Mkundacharged this Thursday against “some” protesters for committing “criminal acts.” “They are criminal and these acts must stop immediately,” he declared on national television.

“The reports we have received indicate that at least 10 people have died,” the UN human rights spokesman declared this Friday from Geneva, Shoes Mici. The deaths have been counted in the cities of Dar es Salaam, Shinyanga and Morogoro.

Magango called on Tanzanian security forces to refrain from “using unnecessary or disproportionate force” against protesters, but also called on protesters not to abandon the peaceful path.

authoritarianism

There is strong discontent with the regime represented by Samia Suluhu, the first president in the history of Tanzania, who took the reins of the African country after the death of the former president. John Magufuli in 2021.

Samia Suluhu received praise from the international community for easing political repression early in her term. But it didn’t take him long to regret it.

The leader of Chadema, Tundu Lissuhas remained in prison since April. The leader of the center-right party is being tried for treason, a crime that can bring him the death penalty.

His other great rival at the polls, Luhaga Mpinaa former member of the ruling party who decided to join the ranks of the opposition ACT-Wazalendo, was twice disqualified from running in the elections.

“Hassan’s regime has not only put the opposition at a disadvantage, it has virtually closed off any possibility of electoral competition,” writes analyst Dan Paget in the pages of the Journal of Democracy. “With the main opposition candidates excluded, Hassan is expected to win a hollow victory against the sixteen remaining candidates of little relevance.”

“His party will probably also maintain its large majority in the 393-member parliament,” adds the researcher.

The final results will not be available until this Saturday. According to the state broadcaster TBCthe electoral commission had announced this Friday the results of some 80 of the country’s 272 regions.

In the semi-autonomous archipelago of Zanzibar, which elects its own government and president, the current president Hussein Mwinyi he won with almost 80 percent of the vote. Mwinyi is part of the ruling CCM. The opposition in Zanzibar, as on the mainland, denounced “massive fraud.”