
Tanzania’s incumbent president Samia Suluhu Hassan has been nominated by the ruling party as its presidential candidate in the East African country’s upcoming general elections scheduled for October 2025.
Hassan took office in 2021 after the sudden death of her authoritarian predecessor John Magufuli. At the end of a general assembly held over the weekend, her party, Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM), announced it had named Hassan as its sole candidate for the October poll. After taking power following Magufuli’s death, she was initially praised for easing restrictions that her predecessor had imposed on the opposition and the media. But Western governments and rights groups have increasingly criticized what they see as renewed repression, with the arrests of politicians from the main opposition Chadema party as well as abductions and murders of opposition figures in the country of around 67 million people.
This comes as opposition leaders from the Chadema party have called for significant electoral and constitutional reforms to make the forthcoming general election free and fair. For example, Tundu Lissu, Chadema politician and member of parliament, noted that while women make up the majority of Tanzania’s population, they face significant barriers in the current electoral system, with only a small percentage of them succeeding in being on the ballot as candidates. It was reported that in the 2020 general election, only six percent of women were directly elected as members of parliament. Despite its efforts, Chadema so far failed to secure an electoral victory over the ruling CCM, which has ruled the nation since 1964.