Tanzania President Wins 98% In Election As Opposition Says Hundreds Killed -

Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan condemned protests around the election in which she was declared winner on Saturday with almost 98 per cent of the vote, while the opposition said hundreds have been killed by security forces.

The electoral commission said Hassan won 97.66 per cent of the vote, with turnout at 87 per cent, despite reports from AFP journalists and other observers that polling stations were largely empty.

Hassan, 65, had sought to cement her position and silence critics in her party with an emphatic victory, helped by the main opposition candidates being either jailed or disqualified.

But a heavy crackdown and the lack of options sparked mass protests around the country.

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“The government strongly condemns and denounces those incidents,” said Hassan as she accepted a winner’s certificate on state television.

“When it comes to the national security… there is no alternative but to employ all defence measures.”

The main opposition party in Tanzania Chadema, told AFP “no less than 800 people” have been killed by security forces since Wednesday.

A security source and a diplomat in Dar es Salaam both told AFP that deaths were “in the hundreds”, but verifying information remained difficult as an internet blackout was still in place Saturday.

The election result is a “mockery of the democratic process,” Chadema spokesman John Kitoka told AFP, calling for a “fresh election”.

“We are going to announce our reaction that could also include calling for national protests,” he added.

Father Charles Kitima, secretary of the Catholic Bishops Conference in Dar es Salaam, said Tanzania has become a “totalitarian regime”.

“It’s a very sad event. For the first time in our country, we are experiencing the mass killing of people protesting,” he told AFP by phone.

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The African Union chair Mahmoud Ali Youssouf congratulated Hassan in a statement but said he “deeply regrets the loss of human life”.

Supporters of Tanzanias ruling party Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) presidential candidate and incumbent President Samia Suluhu Hassan wave flags and chant slogans during the party’s closing campaign rally in Mwanza on October 28, 2025.

Tourists have been stranded by cancelled flights, and the main port at Dar es Salaam — a major economic lifeline for the country — was shuttered, according to data from tracker Vessel Finder and Dutch shipping firm C. Steinweg.

There were reports Saturday of spiking food prices as shops ran low on supplies, petrol stations were closed and public transport halted.

“I have been staying in the mosque since Wednesday when the violence erupted,” Mohamed Rajab, a 52-year-old in Dar es Salaam, told AFP.

“There is no transport. I’m not sure when I’m going back home.”

AFP