The sudden death of Tanzania’s President John Pombe Magufuli has thrown the East African nation into a period of political uncertainty.
Vice-president, Samia Suluhu Hassan, has been sworn in as his successor, making her Tanzania’s first woman president.
The transition is all the more challenging given the major rupture – both political and economic – caused by Magufuli’s presidency. Magufuli, who won a second term in October 2020, dramatically centralised power and pursued an interventionist economic policy agenda. He courted controversy on a number of fronts, most recently, by claiming that Tanzania – contrary to mounting evidence – was Covid-free.
Hassan has called for unity and counselled that now is not the time to look at what has passed but rather to look at what is to come.