Post-Election Violence in Tanzania in 2025
(Translated)
News:
On Monday, 3/11/2025, Samia Suluhu Hassan was sworn in as President of the United Republic of Tanzania for a second term. The elections, which were marred by violence for several days starting on October 29, 2025, resulted in heavy losses of life, property, and public infrastructure.
Comment:
This is not the first time Tanzania has witnessed electoral violence since the implementation of multi-partyism in 1995. Because violence has been a part of every general election, among the worst was the 2000 election in Zanzibar, where 35 people were killed and 600 others were injured, and about 2,000 others migrated to Kenya, according to Human Rights Watch.
Violence in democratic elections is common around the world. For example, from December 2007 to February 2008 in Kenya, more than 1,200 people were killed and about 350,000 were displaced, in Côte d'Ivoire in 2010, an estimated three thousand people were killed, in Senegal in 2012, about 15 people were killed, and in Mozambique in 2024, more than 50 people were killed, all by way of example. Global reports estimate that election violence occurs in about 19% of the world, and in about 58% of elections in Africa!
We have seen this even in countries considered champions of democracy, such as the United States in its 2020 elections, where after Trump's initial defeat, the following year, on January 6, crowds of his supporters wreaked havoc on the U.S. Capitol Building (Capitol Hill) with several deaths reported.
The main reason for violence in democratic elections, which is the ruling capitalist system, is due to the nature of the capitalist principle itself.
The capitalist doctrine emerged from a weak, fragile, and illogical secular doctrine, devoid of spiritual values, and focused only on self-interest as a measure of all actions. In this case, violence becomes imminent because followers of democracy are willing to engage in anything in order to achieve interests.
Not to mention capitalism's adoption of a Machiavellian strategy of using any means, such as lying, killing, inciting sedition among people, sabotaging public and private property, etc., to achieve the desired end. Also, Western countries, which introduced multi-party democracy, deceived people, showing them that the "second liberation" is a clear deception.
The slogan of the false "second liberation," through multi-party democracy, is similar to the slogan of "independence"; both aim to distract people, especially in developing countries, and mislead them from seeking and struggling for a real and radical solution to eradicate capitalism from its roots, which is the source of all destruction in these countries in particular.
The slogan of "independence" in the fifties and sixties of the last century aimed to change the pattern of old colonialism to a new colonialism through local agents in the name of granting independence. After years of independence, people realized that there was no change as expected, and they were fed up with the brutal, despotic Western agents who rule through a single party, as Western countries cleverly introduced multi-party democracy to falsely appease them. Under multi-partyism, people have been brainwashed to believe that changing the face will lead to changes in the country. How will change happen without a fundamental and radical change to capitalism, which still controls every aspect of the developing world, working day and night to exploit our resources by any means, even causing civil strife, division, and war to achieve its colonial agenda, as we are witnessing in Congo, Mozambique, and others?!
Moreover, the violence that followed the elections in Tanzania and elsewhere not only revealed democracy as a system of chaos and destruction, but also revealed the myth of the Western war on terror propaganda that targeted Islam and Muslims around the world indiscriminately, while democracy supporters and activists shamelessly support this brutal violence, and some even participate in it openly.
In conclusion, Tanzania, developing countries, and all of humanity will not enjoy peace and tranquility under a corrupt democratic system, but need a radical change under Islam, which has ruled peoples for centuries, with fair and equitable dealings for all.
Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut-Tahrir Radio
Saeed Bitomwa
Member of the Media Office of Hizb ut-Tahrir in Tanzania
