How Samia Suluhu Dropped the Reformer Mask and Forged Tanzania's New Autocracy Tanzania was for decades a beacon, albeit an imperfect one, of egalitarian African socialism under the venerated founder Julius Nyerere. Even successive leaders who embraced some free-market reforms leaned into egalitarian and deeply republican romanticism. The volatile John Magufuli (2015–2021) was anti-liberal (he hated the free press and the opposition), extreme in the violence of his rule, and embraced several voodoo ideas (especially on health, women and girls), but he was also deeply development-focused and pro-man-and-woman-on-the-street. With his sudden death in March 2021, his deputy, Samia Suluhu Hassan, took power after a failed bid by grandees of the long-ruling CCM to deny her the ascension to the post. A matronly figure, she brought an unfamiliar gentle touch to Tanzanian politics (at least compared to Magufuli) and even mouthed political and constitutional reform. But rarely has a politician flattered so much to deceive. As soon as she was reasonably consolidated, she brought her fangs out and flushed reform down the sink. Tanzania had entered its worst nightmare. Her crackdown on the opposition made Magufuli look amateurish. CCM has historically stolen the vote, but in the October 2025 election Suluhu plundered it, winning with 98%, the highest percentage recorded in a multi-party presidential election in Tanzania's history. With it, various sources reported that anything between 500 and 3,000 people were killed during election-fraud protests by the opposition. But above all, Suluhu has disfigured Tanzania most by turning it into a corrupt familiocracy that the Ujamaa of Nyerere, the Tanzania of Hassan Ali Mwinyi and Ben Mkapa, would have no words for. Perhaps borrowing a leaf from northern neighbour Uganda, her daughter MP Wanu Hafidh Ameir is Deputy Minister of Education. Her son-in-law Mohamed Mchengerwa is Minister of Health. But the man on everyone's lips is her son, businessman Abdul Halim Hafidh Ameir, 40. Wags claim that, though he holds no formal government post, he is the man "running" Tanzania. How did a gentle socialism-dabbling Tanzania end up with its belly up under Suluhu? Like many stories of tyrants, it started with some disrespect. Tanzanian analysts and commentators say Magufuli's powerbrokers within CCM made the mistake those in Kenya's KANU made with Vice President Daniel arap Moi in 1978 after Jomo Kenyatta – they (and most of the general public) considered her a lightweight transition president after the death of Magufuli. Facing rejection, Suluhu allegedly bribed many folks in CCM and installed herself as the party flagbearer for the October 2025 election in January 2025, without the formal nomination process under the CCM constitution that all her predecessors had followed. There were still cases of enforced disappearances inherited from Magufuli. Still, to stamp her power, cases ramped up dramatically from early 2025 to stamp out internal and external opposition and deal with rejectionists in the party. The jailing of leading opposition Tundu Lissu ahead of the election, and the disappearance of former ambassador and CCM stalwart-turned-critic Humphrey Polepole on the night of 6 October 2025, partly fuelled a boycott of the election and protests in October, and Suluhu dealt with the resulting crisis of legitimacy by hammering opposition to the pulp. Meanwhile, corruption cases spiralled out of control; people on the mainland, who form the far-out majority of the Union, felt the minority Zanzibaris (Suluhu is from Zanzibar) were taking all key positions in government institutions. Before long, ministers had to seek presidential son Abdul Halim Hafidh's consent before making decisions, particularly when his interests were involved. In four short years, Suluhu, who seemed at the outset the least likely of candidates to do so, has overseen the great informalisation of the Tanzanian state. In a recent taste of how ruthless the Suluhu machine can be, Vice President Emmanuel Nchimbi softly but publicly urged Tanzanians in July to push for a new constitution before the 2030 elections. The Suluhu machine took out their knives and began sharpening them. On 26 August 2026, an under-pressure Nchimbi announced his resignation, effective 4 September. That same day, the CCM politburo expelled him from the party, without delay. Like Polepole, it would be no surprise if Nchimbi disappeared one day, or his remains were found half-eaten by wild animals in a national park. After all, Tanzanian activist and social media regime critic Edgar Mwakabela, widely known online as Sativa, was abducted in June 2024 from a highway in Dar es Salaam. After being severely beaten for days, his abductors transported him over 1,000 kilometres away to Katavi National Park, shot him in the head, and left him for dead. Sativa refused to die. He lives to tell the horror story. It was said of India's steely first female prime minister Indira Gandhi in her autocratic last years, that "Kali (the fierce Hindu goddess of destruction and power) brooks no dissent". One could say that Suluhu rules with the unyielding, draconian severity of a modern-day Chief Mirambo (the 1800s Iron King of the Nyamwezi) and is mercilessly crushing any hand that attempts to tip the balance of power.