Following elections on Oct 29, Samia Suluhu Hassan was sworn into office Monday, Nov 3. Although Suluhu Hassan has been serving as President for the last four years, she had never been elected, having come to power only after the unexpected disappearance and death of her predecessor, John Magufuli, a death later blamed on Covid-19. The elections were relatively peaceful, with the UN reporting a total of 10 deaths in post-election confrontations.
Then, on Sat., Nov 1, as if responding to some unheard starting gun, the western press—BBC, CBS, France 24, and more—exploded with headlines asserting mass repression by authorities, reporting (with amazing unanimity) that 700 protesters had been killed by the army and police. Further reports, all credited to anonymous sources in the “opposition,” while not repeating the unsupportable 700 figure, have asserted that authorities are now secretly burying bodies.
This bald-faced effort to “stir something up” in Tanzania owes to the fact that Suluhu Hassan has continued the pro-infrastructure building efforts of her predecessor Magufuli, fondly known as “the bulldozer,” and has shown herself to have been very effective at it, as well. Suluhu Hassan has continued to defend the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) against a well-financed green mafia, as well as the trans-national SGR railroad modernization program, even expanding it with a $2.15 billion spur into Burundi in February, 2025. Hassan has also signed a $1.5 billion deal with China, for the modernization (to SGR standards) of the TAZARA (Tanzania, Zambia Railroad), originally known as the Freedom Rail line, built in 1975.
Tanzania’s SGR project—a 1,300-km undertaking—is being built in five segments, the first three of which (according to Construction Review) are now operational.
