DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania (AP) – Samia Suluhu Hassan made history on Friday when she vowed to be Tanzania’s first female president after the death of her controversial predecessor, John Magufuli, who denied COVID-19 was a problem in the East African country. .
Wearing a hijab and holding a Qur’an with his right hand, Hassan, 61, was sworn in at State House, the government offices in Dar es Salaam, the country’s largest city.
The inauguration was witnessed by cabinet members, former presidents Ali Hassan Mwinyi and Jakaya Kikwete. The former heads of state were among the few people in the room who wore face masks to protect themselves from COVID-19.
Hassan succeeds Magufuli, who had not been seen in public for more than two weeks before his transfer was announced on state television on Wednesday. Magufuli had denied that COVID-19 was a problem in Tanzania, saying national prayer had eradicated the country’s disease. But Magufuli acknowledged weeks before his death that the virus was a danger.
An important test of Hassan’s new presidency will be how he faces the pandemic. Under Magufuli, Tanzania, one of the most populous countries in Africa, with 60 million people, made no effort to obtain vaccines or promote the use of masks and social distancing to fight the virus. This policy of ignoring the disease endangers neighboring countries, warn African health officials.
Although Hassan announced that Magufuli died of heart failure, exiled opposition leader Tundu Lissu said the president died of COVID-19, citing medical sources informed in Dar es Salaam.
“The immediate job, the immediate decision you have to make and you don’t have much time to do it, is what will you do with COVID-19?” Lissu told The Associated Press in his place of exile in Belgium.
“President Magufuli challenged the world, challenged science, challenged common sense in his approach to COVID-19 and finally brought him down,” Lissu said.
“President Samia Saluhu Hassan must decide very soon whether to change course or continue with the same disastrous approach of COVID-19 that his predecessor took,” the opposition leader said.
Hassan must also decide how he will address Magufuli’s legacy, including whether to continue his policies that led Tanzania from a relatively tolerant democracy to a repressive state, Lissu said, questioning whether he will be able to restore political freedoms and democracy. of the country.
Lissu went into exile in 2017 after being shot 16 times. The attack came shortly after Magufuli said those who opposed his economic reforms deserved to die. Lissu returned to Tanzania to challenge Magufuli in the 2020 elections. He lost to Magufuli in polls marked by violence and widespread allegations of vote manipulation. Lissu returned to exile, saying that his life was in danger.
Speaking during his inauguration, Hassan gave few indications that he intended to change course from Magufuli.
“It’s not a good day to talk to you because I have a heart wound,” Hassan said, speaking Kiswahili. “Today I took an oath different from the rest I took in my career. Those were taken for happiness. Today I took the highest oath of mourning, “he said.
He said Magufuli, “who always liked to teach,” had prepared her for the task ahead. “Nothing will go wrong,” he assured, urging the unit.
“It’s time to stay together and connect. It’s time to bury our differences, show us love and look forward with confidence, ”he said. “This is not the time to point fingers, but to hold hands and move forward to build the new Tanzania that President Magufuli aspired to.”
Hassan will complete Magufuli’s second term, which began in October. He has had a meteoric rise in politics in a male-dominated field. Both Tanzania and the surrounding East African region are slowly emerging from patriarchy.
After Magufuli selected her as a running mate in 2015, Hassan became Tanzania’s first vice president. She was the second woman to become vice president in the region, after Uganda’s Specioza Naigaga Wandira, who was in charge from 1994 to 2003.
Born in Zanzibar, the semi-autonomous archipelago of Tanzania, in 1960, Hassan went to primary and secondary school at a time when very few girls in Tanzania were educated, as their parents thought a woman’s place was that of wife and housewife.
After graduating from high school in 1977, Hassan studied statistics and began working in government, in the Ministry of Planning and Development. He worked for a World Food Program project in Tanzania in 1992 and then attended the University of Manchester in London for a postgraduate degree in economics. In 2005, he earned a master’s degree in community economic development through a joint program between the Open University of Tanzania and the University of Southern Hampshire in the United States.
Hassan entered politics in 2000 when he became a member of the Zanzibar House of Representatives. In 2010, he won the Makunduchi parliamentary seat with more than 80% of the vote. She was appointed Minister of the Council of Ministers in 2014 and became Vice-President of the Constituent Assembly which drafted a new constitution for Tanzania, a role in which she earned respect for skillfully tackling various challenges.
As president, Hassan’s first task will be to unite ruling party Chama Cha Mapinduzi behind her, said Ed Hobey-Hamsher, a senior African analyst at research firm Verisk Maplecroft. The party has been in power since Tanzania’s independence.
As a Muslim woman from Zanzibar, Hassan may have difficulty gaining the support of the party’s continental Christians, she said, warning that some established leaders may develop “obstructionist strategies” against her. He said Hassan is likely to start his government by maintaining the status quo and not embarking on a significant reshuffle of the Cabinet.
Hassan is the second woman in East Africa to serve as head of state. Burundian Sylvia Kiningi served as interim president of this small landlocked country for nearly four months until February 1994.
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Odula contributed from Nakuru, Kenya. AP journalist Bishr Eltouni in Tienen, Belgium, contributed.