On October 28, the Tanzanians will elect their president and members of parliament. Current President John Magufuli is running for a second term. Since his accession to power in 2015, he has been accused of authoritarianism, but the opposition is dispersed in front of him.
In the October 28 election, John Magufuli will face 14 opposition candidates. Among them, Tundu Lissu, his main opponent, candidate of the Chadema party. In 2017, the latter had narrowly escaped an assassination attempt. After being hit by 16 bullets at his home in the capital Dodoma and after multiple surgeries and a long convalescence in Belgium, he was finally able to return to Tanzania last July.
Since the beginning of the electoral campaign at the end of August, Tundu Lissu has gathered many supporters at his rallies. But at the beginning of the month, the electoral commission suspended his campaign for a week for “seditious remarks”.
John Magufuli is accused of having set up a system of repression that has become increasingly authoritarian since he came to power. Yet the opposition’s division in the upcoming election could favour his re-election as head of state.
In the previous election five years ago, an opposition coalition obtained an unprecedented 40% of the votes. John Magufuli obtained 58% of the votes. His party, the Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM), has been in power since the country’s independence in 1961.