Tundu Lissu, shot 16 times in an assassination attempt, has returned to Tanzania to run for president — but he did not know what to expect after the “hell” experienced by the opposition under Tanzanian President John Magufuli.
Political rallies had been banned for years, freedom of speech suffocated, and opposition leaders killed, abducted and arrested — Lissu was worried for his own safety.
However, the 52-year-old has been amazed by his compatriots’ reaction as he crisscrosses the country to crowds clamoring to see him.
Photo: AFP
“After five years of repression, I was not expecting this kind of enthusiasm and mass support from the people,” he said.
The opposition has “gone through hell,” but Lissu said that his Chadema Party is likely to come out on top in the presidential and parliamentary elections on Wednesday next week.
However, like many observers, he said that it is not likely to be a fair fight.
“There has not been one large event that has really thrown the free-and-fair moniker off of this election. It has been more a series of small things, death by a thousand cuts, if you will,” a Western diplomat said on condition of anonymity. “Whether it is a campaign event being disrupted by police, campaign officials being arrested for unknown reasons ... the burning of Chadema offices ... little things that add up.”
Tanzania has long been seen as a haven of stability in an otherwise volatile region, but since Magufuli’s election in 2015 as a corruption-busting man of the people, alarm has grown over a perceived slide into autocracy.
Magufuli at first made wildly popular moves, such as curbing foreign travel for government officials or showing up in person to make sure civil servants were doing their work, but Institute for Security Studies researcher Ringisai Chikohomero said that it was clear from the start that the leader’s approach “does not leave room for anyone to question his methods.”
Then, Magufuli banned political rallies — saying that it was time for work, not politics — and cut live coverage of sessions of the Tanzanian parliament.
A series of tough media laws were passed, arrests of journalists, rights advocates and opposition members soared, and several opposition members were killed.
Rights groups denounced an unprecedented crackdown on the LGBTQ community.
When a local advocacy group published an opinion poll showing that his popularity had plunged from 96 percent at the beginning of his term to 55 percent in 2018, its director had his passport confiscated and additional polls were banned.
As a result of the ban on opinion polls, it is difficult to assess how popular Magufuli remains, and how his drive for development versus the crackdown on freedoms is seen by the average Tanzanian.
“Someone will say: ‘If I have food on the table, if I can send my kids to school, if I can go to work, what is this media freedom you are talking about?’ It’s that dichotomy between bread-and-butter issues and civil liberties which are always seen as playing second fiddle,” Chikohomero said.
As voting day nears, efforts to frustrate the opposition campaign have intensified, with Lissu’s supporters being tear-gassed, while the election commission suspended his campaign for seven days over “seditious language.”
“There are real worrying signs that the election this year may not be free and fair and that the outcome may not reflect the will of the Tanzanian people, and that is troubling,” the diplomat said.
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