President Samia Suluhu Hassan asserts authority with fast solutions

Tanzania's President Samia Suluhu speaks during a tour of the Tanga region on March 16.  [File, Standard]

Barely three weeks since taking over the Tanzanian presidency on March 19, 2021, Samia Suluhu Hassan has virtually overturned whatever it was that John Pombe Magufuli stood for.

When in 2015 Magufuli picked Suluhu as vice-president, he showed confidence in himself and that his projected victory did not depend on who his running mate was.

Not a threat to his powerful image, Suluhu was to be seen in the background of Magufuli’s 10 years before sliding into political oblivion. She kept her doubts to herself and then fate intervened, made her president, and gave her chance to prove herself as president. As a result, Magufuli’s image as a ‘bulldozer’, forcing his way on everything Tanzania, is fast fading at the hands of his handpicked successor.

Suluhu was quick to assert herself. As the new leader of Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM), Suluhu is the ‘mapinduzi’ that is sweeping entrenched interests away within the party and the governing structures.

Aware that some officials had reservations due to her maumbile ya kike, she reminded those in and outside the party that she is President of Tanzania. Eager to display her stamina in politics, she is fresh air in long-term stratified Tanzanian politics.

This might explain the speed of her presidential actions, putting her house in order, giving press conferences, recommending policy review and giving notice to Tanzania’s entrenched ‘untouchables’. She made it clear that she will be a CCM presidential candidate in 2025 in her own right.

After receiving a report on losses in parastatals, she sent signals to corrupt officials by suspending Tanzania Ports Authority Director General Deusdedit Kakoko, over the disappearance of millions of port money. It was meant to define her as independent and determined to be Tanzania’s policy determinant.

Her performance is of interest to the people of Tanzania and its neighbours, especially Kenya.

This came through several moves. First was the speed with which she chose her vice-president. She ignored CCM honchos as she picked Treasury and Planning Minister Philip Mpango to help her plan.

Then she shuffled the Cabinet, dropped Foreign Affairs Minister Palamagamba Kabudi, and replaced him with Liberata Mulamula who joins a regional club of women ministers for foreign affairs. Apart from telling appointments, her policy pronouncements attracted domestic and international attention and signalled her fresh thinking.

While Magufuli had downplayed the seriousness of coronavirus in Tanzania, getting to the point of ridiculing other countries, Suluhu opened up and set up a scientific commission to explore and give advice on what to do.

There would be no more burying of head in the corona sand. Secondly was the pronouncement related to media freedom in Tanzania, to let reporters do their job of gathering information and informing the public without obstacles.

Suluhu experienced her first policy setback from the unseen ‘custodians of State’ who do not change with elections and tend to ‘clarify’ what the policy maker meant.

She wanted officials to stop harassing foreign investors, to remove media restrictions, and to take coronavirus seriously. Instead of implementing presidential policy decision, Tanzania government Spokesman Gerson Msigwa and Minister for Culture Innocent Bashungwa sought to ‘clarify’ what the president meant. The opening up of the press, Msigwa asserted, was for ‘online news’ only and not for the general ban on print and electronic media.

It is in foreign affairs, particularly in relating to neighbours in the East African Community, that she might deviate substantially from Magufuli. Her desire to attract foreign investors to help boost the economy would mean effort to ease tensions in East Africa over many challenges, coronavirus being a major one.

In doing so, she would need to resolve Tanzania’s multiple identity challenges within as it relates to Zanzibar and outside as it relates to EAC and SADC.

Kenya welcomed Suluhu’s pronouncement on foreign investments, coronavirus, and on the media for it implied fresh regional cooperation, border openings and unhindered trade. Since she and her Kenyan counterpart, Uhuru Kenyatta, suffer the same handicap of juniors clarifying presidential policy statements, they might face similar obstacles from ‘custodians of State’ who may be reluctant to change.

While overt official hostility might decline, the arising questions are on whether the ‘custodians of State’ would let Suluhu exercise ‘ruksa’ or whether Kenya would adjust to new Tanzania.