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Tanzania — from leader of Frontline States to a net exporter of authoritarianism

One would have expected Tanzania, as the de facto leader of the Frontline States, to defend the gains of the liberation struggle and to be a leader in democratic practices. But alas, it has projected the worst of practices that are undemocratic in post-independent African states.
Arnold Tsunga
By Arnold Tsunga
29 Oct 2025
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Tanzania has a distinguished role as the undisputed leader of the Frontline States. Those states bore the brunt of the struggle against apartheid from the Sixties until the last non-liberated state, South Africa, got its (independence) freedom in 1994 after waging an intense armed struggle against the apartheid system. 

The fight against colonial domination was sanctioned by the Organization of African Unity, the African Union’s predecessor. One of the organisation’s objectives was the total emancipation of African states from the yoke of oppression and colonialism. 

Tanzania, under the leadership of Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, stood out and distinguished itself in the struggle for Africa’s liberation. It intentionally and consciously provided military bases and refugee stations for the people of Africa coming from states that were still under colonialism. These included Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa.

One by one these countries waged successful armed struggles against minority racial domination. These led to independence at various stages until South Africa attained freedom in 1994. 

The core elements of the struggles that the Frontline States fought under Tanzania’s leadership included the right to self-determination, expressed then as one man, one vote, non-discrimination and respect for human dignity and rights, and equity in economic opportunity. 

Unfortunately, in a number of countries in Africa, the end of colonial rule by a racial minority did not usher in an era of enjoyment of human rights and economic opportunity for the majority. Instead the post-independence African state continued with some form of minority rule. This time a small black elite captured the state and continued a minority oppressive and patronage system that further eroded the right to self-determination for the majority of the African people. 

In these new oppressive systems, elections became an enterprise to capture and consolidate state power rather than an opportunity for democratic participation and consolidation by the majority of the people. 

One would have expected Tanzania, as the de facto leader of the Frontline States, to defend the gains of the liberation struggle and to be a leader in democratic practices – especially with a woman president, Samia Suluhu Hassan, following the sudden demise of John Magufuli. But alas, Tanzania has projected the worst of practices that are undemocratic in post-independent African states. 

The demise of democracy in Tanzania is best symbolised by the fact that this week, on 29 October 2025, Tanzania goes into an election with no contest for the presidency. The main opposition party, Chadema, objected to elections without reforms, adopting the slogan “no reforms, no elections”. 

Unbelievably, for this stance, the opposition leader, human rights lawyer Tundu Lissu, was arrested, imprisoned and tried, charged with treason! Despite being acquitted, he remains in prison, in solitary confinement.

His trial was a façade. He was deprived of his right to legal representation. The trial was not fully accessible to the public. Trial observers and human rights activists were abducted, disappeared or deported when they tried to observe Lissu’s trial to assess if it accorded with the right to a fair trial as provided for in the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights and other international standards binding on Tanzania.  

Such was the determination to create a “black box” in the trial of Lissu that the Africa Judges and Jurists president and former chief justice of Kenya, Dr Willy Mutunga, was detained before being deported from Tanzania after he had tried to observe proceedings. 

Other notable characters to be either abducted, tortured or deported included Martha Karua (human rights lawyer and former justice minister in Kenya), Boniface Mwangi and Agather Atuhaire (human rights activists from Kenya and Uganda).

As if preventing the main opposition leader from contesting elections were not enough, in October alone human rights groups, whose identities are withheld for fear of reprisals, report that between 1 and 25 October 2025 Tanzania experienced an alarming wave of 52 abductions across a number of regions. Most victims are leaders and members of Chadema, including teachers, pharmacists, motorcyclists and ordinary people. The abduction and enforced disappearance of former Tanzanian ambassador to Cuba Humphrey Polepole was a high-profile one and remains extremely worrisome. 

Zanzibar too has not been spared electoral malpractices that are meant to determine electoral outcomes well before elections are held. A historical analysis of the election environment there shows serious electoral irregularities and malpractices that makes it difficult to have credible elections without effective reform. For example, before, during and after the October 2020 elections Zanzibar experienced 21 extrajudicial killings, 240 people were injured through the politically motivated use of live bullets, batons, wire whips and even machete attacks, and more than 300 others were arrested or abducted temporarily, with some held in undisclosed locations. Serious and widespread violations of human rights included sexual and gender-based violence, abductions, enforced disappearances, forced displacements, torture and gunshot injuries. 

Unfortunately, impunity for such violations prevailed. A society that has strong values of unity and social cohesion was divided. All because of a quest for power.

For elections to be credible, the electoral procedures and processes need to be certain while the result or outcome needs to be uncertain. 

In Tanzania the opposite is true. Everyone knows the electoral outcome that the incumbent Mama Samia Suluhu Hassan will be announced winner after elections. However, no one knows the rules with certainty. Regrettably, violence, including use of lethal arms against unarmed civilians, torture, abductions, enforced disappearances, imprisonment and sometimes death, is assured.

Pan-Africanists regret this turnaround of Tanzania from being a leader of the Frontline States and paragon of liberation and freedom into a formidable leader of authoritarian practices. It is time for the leadership of Tanzania to self-introspect and stop becoming a net exporter of repressive practices in the region. DM