The East African Monday June 28 2021 Summary President Samia, 61, took over a country that was being treated as a pariah due to Covid denialism after the late president announced that the coronavirus had been vanquished in the country in April 2020, and stopped publishing Covid-19 data. She inherited a dying economy, hard-hit by the vagaries of the coronavirus and a deeply divided nation smarting from a highly contentious result of a general election in which the ruling Chama cha Mapinduzi (CCM) had swept the board, leaving just a vestige of opposition. From the outset, the president was faced with five major problems: reversing the sentiment around Covid-19, saving the economy, repairing political and civil society relations, empowering women and youth and promoting foreign relations. So, she hit the ground running.