Tanzania’s recent spate of kidnappings, arrests and brutal killings of opposition leaders appears to have dimmed the light of political hope that was born from President Samia Suluhu Hassan’s rise to power in 2021.
The inauguration of Tanzania’s first female president, Samia, came as a huge relief to the nation’s people, and opposition parties were able to hold rallies and criticise the government without fear of serious repercussions.
But there are growing concerns that Tanzania is slipping back into the days of the dictatorial rule of his predecessor, John Magufuli.
Within the space of a few weeks, two of the most senior opposition leaders were arrested twice and another senior opposition leader, Ali Kibao, was kidnapped, killed and his body poured with acid by unknown assailants.
“The political situation in Tanzania is extremely worrying,” said Tundu Lissu, deputy leader of the main opposition Chadema party.
Lissu spoke to the BBC a week before his arrest on Monday, when his party was planning to protest against Kibao’s killing and the alleged disappearance of several government critics. He has since been released on bail.
He was also released on bail last month after being arrested on the eve of a banned opposition rally in the southwestern town of Mbeya.
Chadema said around 100 party members had been detained to prevent the rally from taking place.
“We are starting to see a wave of repression and state-sponsored violence of the kind that characterized 2016-2020 (the period of Magufuli’s rule),” Lissu told the BBC.
In 2017, Liss was seriously injured in an assassination attempt in which the car he was riding in was shot with at least 16 bullets.
He received medical treatment abroad and lived in exile in Belgium, but returned home last year after the president lifted a ban on public gatherings to, in his words, “write a new chapter for the country.”
Liss now sees the promised reforms as little more than a pretense.
“There are no reforms, no democratic reforms,” he told the BBC.
He claimed the violence was politically motivated and “linked to security forces”, adding that it was a sign of worse things to come.
Police have denied any involvement and the ruling CCM party’s secretary general, Emmanuel Nchimbi, did not respond to a request for comment from the BBC.
There is no doubt that the crackdown has tarnished the president’s image.
Human rights groups and Western diplomats have called for an immediate end to the “arbitrary detention” and for an “independent and transparent investigation.”
In his response, the president warned “outsiders” not to interfere in Tanzania’s affairs but condemned Kibao’s killing and ordered a prompt investigation.
“We are a democratic country and all our citizens have the right to live,” she said.
“It is astonishing that the death of our brother Kibao has generated so much condemnation, grief and condemnation of the government as murderers.
“This is wrong. Death is death. What we as Tanzanians need to do is come together and condemn these acts,” she added.
Tanzanian political analyst Thomas Kibwana said there appeared to be a lack of good faith between the major parties, which was stalling negotiations to implement reforms.
He added that a confrontational stance may help the opposition garner votes, but it also stokes tensions.
Kibwana said Samia was “very open to dialogue” and that from her perspective, Chadema had “closed the door to negotiations” and resorted to protests.
“It’s up to both sides to sit down and come back to talks,” he added.
Initially, Samia focused on the widely touted “four R’s”: reconciliation, resilience, reform and reconstruction.
Her moves to repair relations with the opposition and initiate reforms were praised at home and abroad, especially because she appeared to be under no political pressure to do so.
There are still signs of the positive image she wants to maintain.
“President for all Tanzanians, regardless of political party, religion, ethnicity or gender. Mama (Samia) will deliver it,” reads a billboard in the centre of the capital, Dodoma.
The billboard features a photo of her in conversation with Mr Lissu, who is now one of her harshest critics.
Other billboards, including in the largest city, Dar es Salaam, show her with other opposition leaders, expressing her intention to unite people across political divides.
These appear to be election advertisements ahead of next month’s local elections, and the presidential and parliamentary elections a year later.
The election will be her first real test. She was Mr Magufuli’s vice president and took over the presidency after his sudden death during the coronavirus pandemic.
Like Magufuli, she belongs to the CCM party, which has won every election it has run since independence from Britain in 1961.
The second-largest opposition party, ACT-Wazalendo, said Samia’s campaign for reform may be hampered by CCM’s fears that it may lose the election.
“I’ve heard CCM leaders say that if she had continued on the pace she set when she took office, the opposition would have lost the country,” party leader Dorothy Sem told the BBC.
“So maybe she feared that if she reformed, she would end up giving in to the opposition,” she added.
But despite government officials sometimes acting as if they were “doing us a favour”, Sem feels the political situation is better than it was under Magufuli’s rule.
“There is now a more open civic space. We can talk freely about politics. We can debate as parties. We can attend political rallies and we can organise meetings,” she told the BBC.
Sem added that as the election approaches, “we are hopeful, but we’re not convinced that everything will work out.”
Lawyer and activist Fatma Karme told the BBC that real reform depended on an overhaul of the country’s laws to weaken the president’s powers.
“Tanzania has what is called an imperial presidency,” she said.
“What we have is a head of state that is not very repressive … a head of state that is not as used to using the repressive powers of the state as Magufuli is.”