DODOMA, Tanzania — Shortly earlier than midnight on a spring night time final 12 months, Samia Suluhu Hassan, then Tanzania’s first feminine vp, appeared on tv to announce to a shocked nation that the president was lifeless.
President John Magufuli, an autocrat generally known as The Bulldozer, had denied that coronavirus existed in his nation, rejected Covid vaccines and died after a weekslong absence from public view amid unconfirmed reviews that he had contracted the virus.
His loss of life catapulted Ms. Hassan to a historic place as Tanzania’s first feminine president. Often called Mama Samia, she is at present the one feminine head of presidency in Africa. On Friday, she met in Washington with a fellow path-breaker, Kamala Harris, the primary lady and first lady of colour to be vp of america.
Since taking workplace, Ms. Hassan has set off on a special path than her predecessor: She inspired Covid vaccinations by publicly taking the shot herself, lifted a ban on pregnant ladies in colleges and commenced to amend some Magufuli-era financial laws to lure again traders.
However her first problem, Ms. Hassan stated in an interview final week on the state home within the capital, Dodoma, was to beat the notion {that a} lady couldn’t lead Tanzania.
“The general public couldn’t consider that we will have a lady president and she will ship,” Ms. Hassan stated. “The problem was to create a belief to the people who sure, I can do it.”
She stated that different African feminine leaders — together with Liberia’s first feminine president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, and Sahle-Work Zewde, the president (although not head of presidency) of Ethiopia — rapidly got here to her help, urging her in a digital assembly to stay assured, search counsel and take heed to her internal voice.
“All of them gave me braveness that you are able to do it,” stated Ms. Hassan, who was fasting for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Since ascending to energy in March final 12 months, Ms. Hassan has positioned herself as a unifying nationwide determine keen to problem the institution and bent on bringing her nation in from the chilly after 5 years of isolationism beneath Mr. Magufuli, who hardly ever traveled overseas.
Tanzania, a nation of 60 million people who borders eight different nations in jap, central and southern Africa, was lengthy seen as a bulwark of stability in a area torn by ethnic strife and civil battle.
However Ms. Hassan, who is predicted to run for president in 2025, takes the helm of a polarized nation with a battered economic system and rising unemployment, a sluggish tempo of vaccine deployment and a rising clamor for constitutional overhauls.
Along with assembly American officers throughout her journey to america, she can be set to courtroom traders, search help in bettering public well being partnerships and promote Tanzania as a vibrant vacationer vacation spot.
In Washington, one challenge that Ms. Hassan is prone to face is the battle in Ukraine. Tanzania was among the many African nations that abstained from the United Nations vote condemning the battle — a transfer Ms. Hassan stated was according to Tanzania’s longstanding place of nonalignment.
Pushed on this, she stated that in “Tanzania, we don’t know why they’re combating,” including that Russia and Ukraine ought to sit down to speak. “The world has to persuade Putin to not combat,” she stated.
Ms. Hassan, 62, was born within the Zanzibar archipelago off the coast of mainland Tanzania to a stay-at-home mom and schoolteacher father. After highschool, she accomplished bachelor’s and postgraduate levels in economics and public administration in colleges in Tanzania and Britain. She later labored with the World Meals Program and held positions in numerous nongovernmental organizations in Zanzibar.
However on the flip of the century, she determined to strive her hand in authorities.
A member of the governing Chama Cha Mapinduzi occasion — or Occasion of the Revolution — because the late Nineteen Eighties, she was elected as a lawmaker in Zanzibar in 2000 earlier than becoming a member of the nationwide Parliament in 2010. Ms. Hassan, who sits within the occasion’s central committee, rapidly went up the ranks, turning into a minister within the vp’s workplace after which rising to the vice presidency in 2015. Ms. Hassan is married to Hafidh Ameir Hafidh, a former agriculture lecturer, with whom she has three sons and one daughter.
Ms. Hassan, who’s soft-spoken and comes throughout as reserved, stated that as vp, it was “robust” working with Mr. Magufuli at instances, and that she argued with him on a number of points, together with his Covid denialism. She rebutted the concept he had succumbed to Covid and stated he had died of coronary heart problems.
As president, she stated, her fundamental precedence was to revive the economic system, construct hundreds of faculties and well being clinics, prolong clear water and electrical energy to rural areas and full key infrastructure initiatives — together with a railway line and a significant hydropower plant. She stated that greater than 250 new companies had already been registered within the nation final 12 months.
But issues have endured concerning the tempo of change beneath her authorities.
Over the previous 12 months, activists had been abducted, two newspapers had been quickly suspended by the federal government and the principle opposition chief, Freeman Mbowe, was jailed for a number of months on terrorism-related fees earlier than his launch. Political rallies outdoors elections have been banned within the nation since 2016, when the federal government accused the opposition of wanting to make use of them to trigger mass civil disobedience. Activists additionally questioned whether or not Ms. Hassan was dedicated to reviewing the structure, which grants huge powers to the chief and was adopted in 1977, when the nation was nonetheless a one-party state.
Ms. Hassan stated she wished to deal with fixing the economic system earlier than turning to the “large” and “expensive” endeavor of fixing the structure. She stated she created a job power from inside the political events council to make suggestions on adjustments, together with lifting the ban on political rallies. She added that she was intent on leveling the taking part in discipline, even when it value her the presidency within the subsequent elections.
She has additionally struck a conciliatory observe with the political opposition and civil society.
On a latest morning, she arrived at a packed corridor within the capital to preside over a convention discussing methods to enhance the democratic area within the nation. Sitting by her aspect onstage was one of many leaders of the nation’s fundamental opposition events, who beneath her predecessor had been arrested and located responsible of sedition, and whose fellow occasion members had been crushed, tear-gassed and denied the possibility to carry rallies.
“Issues have modified,” Zitto Kabwe, the opposition chief, stated in an interview the following day. “We began to breathe some contemporary air from the day the brand new president took workplace.”
However whereas he want to see the political adjustments put in place rapidly, Mr. Kabwe stated he additionally understood Ms. Hassan’s predilection for incremental change. “She’s a pacesetter who desires consensus, and consensus takes time,” he stated.
Final 12 months, Ms. Hassan’s authorities lifted bans on 4 newspapers, however she has but to vary among the restrictive legal guidelines which have been used to undermine media freedom.
Simon Mkina, the writer and editor in chief of Mawio, a weekly investigative newspaper that she reinstated, stated she ought to overhaul media legal guidelines in order that future leaders don’t abuse them. “She should take motion,” he stated.
With three extra years earlier than the following election, Ms. Hassan has her work lower out for her.
Fatma Karume, a distinguished Tanzanian lawyer who was disbarred and had her workplace bombed for difficult Mr. Magufuli’s authorities, stated Ms. Hassan has the possibility to revive Tanzanians’ religion in democracy and remodel the nation.
“She may go away behind a legacy that few different presidents have managed,” Ms. Karume stated in an interview at her dwelling within the port metropolis of Dar es Salaam. “And picture doing that because of a historic accident. It is going to be wonderful.”
Supply: NY Times
