President Samia Suluhu Hassan is expected to win the election, as the two main opposition parties are barred from participating.
Voting has begun in Tanzania for presidential and parliamentary elections, which will be held without the main opposition party, as the government carries out a violent crackdown on the opposition ahead of the vote.
More than 37 million registered voters will cast their votes between 7am local time (4pm GMT) and 4pm local time (1pm GMT). The Election Commission says it will announce the results within three days from the voting date.
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President Samia Suluhu Hassan, 65, is expected to win after candidates from the two main opposition parties were barred from running.
Tundu Lissu, leader of Tanzania’s main opposition party Chadema, is on trial for treason, a charge he denies. In April, the Election Commission disqualified Chadema after he refused to sign the electoral code of conduct.
The commission also disqualified Ruhaga Mpina, a candidate from the second-largest opposition party, ACT Wazalendo, over objections from the attorney general, leaving only candidates from smaller parties to run against Hassan.
In addition to the presidential election, voters will choose the semi-autonomous Zanzibar archipelago’s 400-seat parliament, president and politicians.
Hassan’s ruling party, Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM), whose predecessor led Tanzania’s independence struggle in the 1950s, has dominated national politics since its founding in 1977.
One of Africa’s only two female heads of state, Hassan came to power in 2021 and won praise for easing crackdowns on political opponents and censorship that had escalated under her predecessor, John Magufuli, who died in office.
But for the past two years, rights campaigners and opposition candidates have denounced unexplained abductions of government critics.
She insists the government is committed to respecting human rights and last year ordered an investigation into the abduction report. Official findings have not been made public.
stifling opposition
UN human rights experts called on Hassan’s government to immediately stop forced disappearances of political opponents, human rights defenders, and journalists “as a means of repression in the context of elections.”
They said more than 200 cases of enforced disappearances have been recorded in Tanzania since 2019.
A recent Amnesty International report detailed a “wave of terrorism” including “enforced disappearances and torture… and extrajudicial killings of opposition figures and activists.”
“Authorities repressed political opponents and critics of the ruling party, suppressed the media, and failed to ensure the independence of the electoral commission,” Human Rights Watch said.
The US crisis monitoring group Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED) said the ruling CCM was intent on maintaining its position as “the last hegemonic liberation party in Southern Africa” and avoiding recent electoral pressures faced by its allies in South Africa, Namibia and Zimbabwe.
In September 2024, Ali Mohamed Kibao, a member of the secretariat of the opposition Chadema Party, was forcibly removed from a bus bound for the northeastern port city of Tanga from Dar es Salaam by two gunmen and found dead.
There are concerns that even members of the CCM may be targeted. Humphrey Polepole, a former CCM spokesman and ambassador to Cuba, disappeared from his home this month after resigning and criticizing Hassan. His family found bloodstains in his home.
The Tanganyika Law Society said it had confirmed 83 abductions since Mr Hassan took power, with 20 more reported in recent weeks.
There have been few protests in Tanzania, thanks in part to a relatively healthy economy that grew 5.5% last year on the back of strong agriculture, tourism and mining sectors, according to the World Bank.
Hassan has promised massive infrastructure projects and universal health care to win over voters.
