DODOMA, Tanzania — Shortly earlier than midnight on a spring evening final yr, Samia Suluhu Hassan, then Tanzania’s first feminine vice chairman, appeared on tv to announce to a shocked nation that the president was useless.
President John Magufuli, an autocrat often known as “The Bulldozer,” had denied that coronavirus existed in his nation, rejected Covid vaccines and died after a weekslong absence from public view amid unconfirmed studies that he had contracted the virus.
His loss of life catapulted Ms. Hassan to a historic place as Tanzania’s first feminine president. Often called “Mama Samia,” she is presently the one feminine head of presidency in Africa. On Friday, she is about to fulfill in Washington with a fellow path-breaker, Kamala Harris, the primary lady and first lady of colour to be vice chairman of the US.
Since taking workplace, Ms. Hassan has set off on a unique path than her predecessor: She inspired Covid vaccinations by publicly taking the shot herself, lifted a ban on pregnant women in colleges and commenced to amend some Magufuli-era financial laws to lure again traders.
However her first problem, Ms. Hassan mentioned in an interview final week on the state home within the capital, Dodoma, was to beat the notion {that a} lady couldn’t lead Tanzania.
“The general public couldn’t consider that we are able to have a lady president and she will ship,” Ms. Hassan mentioned. “The problem was to create a belief to the folks that sure, I can do it.”
She mentioned that different African feminine leaders — together with Liberia’s first feminine president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, and Sahle-Work Zewde, the president (although not head of presidency) of Ethiopia — shortly got here to her help, urging her in a digital assembly to stay assured, search counsel and hearken to her inside voice.
“All of them gave me braveness that you are able to do it,” mentioned Ms. Hassan, who was fasting for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Since ascending to energy in March final yr, Ms. Hassan has positioned herself as a unifying nationwide determine keen to problem the institution and bent on bringing her nation in from the chilly after 5 years of isolationism underneath Mr. Magufuli, who hardly ever traveled overseas.
Tanzania, a nation of 60 million folks that borders eight different nations in jap, central and southern Africa, was lengthy seen as a bulwark of stability in a area torn by ethnic strife and civil struggle.
However Ms. Hassan, who is anticipated to run for president in 2025, takes the helm of a polarized nation with a battered financial system and rising unemployment, a gradual tempo of vaccine deployment and a rising clamor for constitutional overhauls.
Along with assembly American officers throughout her journey to the US, she can be set to courtroom traders and promote Tanzania as a vibrant vacationer vacation spot.
In Washington, one problem that Ms. Hassan is more likely to face is the struggle in Ukraine. Tanzania was among the many African nations that abstained from the United Nations vote condemning the struggle — a transfer Ms. Hassan mentioned was in keeping with Tanzania’s longstanding place of nonalignment.
Pushed on this, she mentioned that in “Tanzania, we don’t know why they’re preventing,” including that Russia and Ukraine ought to sit down to speak. “The world has to persuade Putin to not combat,” she mentioned.
Ms. Hassan, 62, was born within the Zanzibar archipelago off the coast of mainland Tanzania to a stay-at-home mom and schoolteacher father. After highschool, she accomplished bachelor’s and postgraduate levels in economics and public administration in colleges in Tanzania and Britain. She later labored with the World Meals Program and held positions in numerous nongovernmental organizations in Zanzibar.
However on the flip of the century, she determined to strive her hand in authorities.
A member of the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi get together — or Occasion of the Revolution — for the reason that late Nineteen Eighties, she was elected as a lawmaker in Zanzibar in 2000 earlier than becoming a member of the nationwide Parliament in 2010. Ms. Hassan, who sits within the get together’s central committee, shortly went up the ranks, changing into a minister within the vice chairman’s workplace after which rising to the vice presidency in 2015. Ms. Hassan is married to Hafidh Ameir Hafidh, a former agriculture lecturer, with whom she has three sons and one daughter.
Ms. Hassan, who’s soft-spoken and comes throughout as reserved, mentioned that as vice chairman, it was “powerful” working with Mr. Magufuli at instances, and that she argued with him on a number of points, together with his Covid denialism. She rebutted the concept he had succumbed to Covid and mentioned he had died of coronary heart issues.
As president, she mentioned, her fundamental precedence was to revive the financial system, construct 1000’s of faculties and well being clinics, lengthen clear water and electrical energy to rural areas and full key infrastructure initiatives — together with a railway line and a significant hydropower plant. She mentioned that greater than 250 new companies had already been registered within the nation final yr.
But issues have persevered concerning the tempo of change underneath her authorities.
Over the previous yr, activists had been kidnapped, two newspapers had been quickly suspended by the federal government and the primary opposition chief, Freeman Mbowe, was jailed for a number of months on terrorism-related costs earlier than his launch. Political rallies outdoors elections have been banned within the nation since 2016, when the federal government accused the opposition of wanting to make use of them to trigger mass civil disobedience. Activists additionally questioned whether or not Ms. Hassan was dedicated to reviewing the structure, which grants huge powers to the manager and was adopted in 1977, when the nation was nonetheless a one-party state.
Ms. Hassan mentioned she needed to concentrate on fixing the financial system earlier than turning to the “large” and “pricey” endeavor of adjusting the structure. She mentioned she created a job pressure from inside the political events council to make suggestions on adjustments, together with lifting the ban on political rallies. She added that she was intent on leveling the enjoying discipline, even when it price her the presidency within the subsequent elections.
She has additionally struck a conciliatory observe with the political opposition and civil society.
On a latest morning, she arrived at a packed corridor within the capital to preside over a convention discussing the best way to enhance the democratic area within the nation. Sitting by her aspect onstage was one of many leaders of the nation’s fundamental opposition events, who underneath her predecessor had been arrested and located responsible of sedition, and whose fellow get together members had been crushed, tear-gassed and denied the prospect to carry rallies.
“Issues have modified,” Zitto Kabwe, the opposition chief, mentioned in an interview the following day. “We began to breathe some recent air from the day the brand new president took workplace.”
However whereas he wish to see the political adjustments put in place shortly, Mr. Kabwe mentioned he additionally understood Ms. Hassan’s predilection for incremental change. “She’s a pacesetter who needs consensus, and consensus takes time,” he mentioned.
Final yr, Ms. Hassan’s authorities lifted bans on 4 newspapers, however she has but to vary a few of the restrictive legal guidelines which were used to undermine media freedom.
Simon Mkina, the writer and editor in chief of Mawio, a weekly investigative newspaper that she reinstated, mentioned she ought to overhaul media legal guidelines in order that future leaders don’t abuse them. “She should take motion,” he mentioned.
With three extra years earlier than the following election, Ms. Hassan has her work lower out for her.
Fatma Karume, a distinguished Tanzanian lawyer who was disbarred and had her workplace bombed for difficult Mr. Magufuli’s authorities, mentioned Ms. Hassan has the prospect to revive Tanzanians’ religion in democracy and rework the nation.
“She might depart behind a legacy that few different presidents have managed,” Ms. Karume mentioned in an interview at her residence within the port metropolis of Dar es Salaam. “And picture doing that on account of a historic accident. It will likely be wonderful.”
