Tanzania’s election authorities on Saturday officially declared President Samia Suluhu Hassan the runaway winner of this week’s bitterly-contested polls — announcing that she secured close to 98% of the vote in a ballot that has triggered violent national unrest.
Hassan — who first assumed the presidency in 2021 after the death of John Magufuli — now enters a new five-year mandate at the helm of the East African nation, home to roughly 68 million people.
But the victory announcement did not land quietly.
Large-scale protests erupted on Wednesday as Tanzanians headed to the polls for both parliamentary and presidential contests — with eyewitnesses describing scenes of banners bearing Hassan’s image being yanked down, government infrastructure torched, and security forces firing teargas and live rounds to push back crowds.
The anger on the streets stems from the electoral commission’s disqualification of Hassan’s two most prominent challengers — a move critics have branded politically engineered.
Tanzania’s main opposition has gone further — telling media that it believes the death toll has reached the hundreds.
The U.N. human rights office however has only confirmed that “credible reports” place confirmed deaths at at least 10, spread across three urban centres.
Government officials have rubbished the opposition’s death claims as “wildly inflated”, and continue to insist the polls were lawful.
Casualty numbers remain contested — and as Reuters notes — independent verification of exactly how many lives have been lost has not yet been possible.
Deadly protests have continued to spread across Tanzania since voting began on Wednesday, in controversial elections key opposition figures were barred from running in.
Several people have reportedly been killed, as violence spilled over into a border town in Kenya. pic.twitter.com/w8uPz2o7Lz
— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) October 31, 2025
ZiMetro News will continue to monitor developments on this tense and volatile story — with Reuters credited as a source for core information in this report.
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