Tanzania’s first female president
Samia Suluhu Hassan makes history at her swearing-in, just days after her predecessor’s death.
DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania — Samia Suluhu Hassan, 61, made history Friday when she was sworn in as Tanzania’s first female president, two days after the announcement of the death of her controversial predecessor, John Magufuli, who denied that COVID-19 was a problem in the East African country.
Wearing a hijab and holding a Quran, Hassan took the oath of office at State House, the government offices in Dar es Salaam.
Hassan, who served as vice president under Magufuli, is the second woman in East Africa to serve as head of government. Sylvie Kinigi served as president of tiny landlocked Burundi for nearly four months until February 1994.
A major test of Hassan’s presidency will be how she deals with the pandemic in the nation of 60 million people.
Under Magufuli, Tanzania made no efforts to obtain vaccines or promote the use of masks and social distancing. The policy of ignoring the disease endangers neighboring countries, African health officials warn.
Although Hassan said Magufuli died of heart failure, exiled opposition leader Tundu Lissu says the president died of COVID-19, citing informed medical sources in Dar es Salaam.
“The immediate job, the immediate decision she has to make, and she doesn’t have much time for it, is what is she going to do about COVID-19?” he said from Belgium.
“President Samia Saluhu Hassan has to decide very soon whether she is changing course or continuing with the same disastrous approach to COVID-19 that her predecessor took,” he said.
Lissu said she must decide whether to continue policies that took Tanzania from a relatively tolerant democracy to a repressive state. He questioned whether she could restore political freedoms and democracy.
Speaking at her inauguration, Hassan gave little indication that she intended to change course.
“It’s not a good day for me to talk to you because I have a wound in my heart,” Hassan said in Swahili.
“Today I have taken an oath different from the rest that I have taken in my career. Those were taken in happiness. Today I took the highest oath of office in mourning.”