Displaying items by tag: Tundu Lissu

Days after its leader Tundu Lissu was arrested and charged with treason, Tanzania’s opposition party CHADEMA has been disqualified from this year’s elections. The electoral commission claims it failed to sign an election code of conduct, rendering it ineligible for the October presidential and parliamentary polls. Lissu, who survived being shot sixteen times in 2017, was elected as party president in January. He is accused of calling on the public to launch a rebellion and disrupt the election. CHADEMA had already threatened to boycott the elections unless significant reforms are made to an electoral process it says favours the ruling party: the party’s chief attorney has said, ‘No reforms, no elections’. Human rights campaigners have accused the government of an intensifying crackdown on political opponents, citing a string of unexplained abductions and killings. Serious questions persist about the state of democracy and civil rights in Tanzania.

Tundu Lissu has been elected chairman of Tanzania’s main opposition party, Chadema, ousting Freeman Mbowe, who had led the party for over twenty years. Lissu won a tightly contested election with 51.5% of the vote, campaigning on promises of change and stronger opposition to the ruling CCM party. Mbowe emphasised his record of strengthening the party and accepted the results graciously. Lissu, a vocal critic of the government, survived a 2017 assassination attempt and lost the presidential election in 2020 to John Magufuli. He has accused Magufuli’s successor, Samia Suluhu Hassan, of repression, and strongly spoken out against human rights violations and recent abductions and disappearances of citizens, including opposition officials. He and other colleagues have been arrested in recent months amid a government crackdown on opposition demonstrations. His leadership signals a shift towards a bolder opposition stance ahead of the October presidential elections.