The last of the hegemonic liberation parties: Tanzania’s CCM clings to power as elections loom

President Samia Suluhu Hassan and the CCM party will face no effective opposition in Tanzania’s general elections on 29 October, ensuring continued rule by the party in power since attaining independence in 1961. The election will follow over four-and-a-half years of sustained repression by a CCM-controlled state that is keen to avoid the electoral pressures faced by fellow southern Africa liberation parties such as South Africa’s African National Congress, the Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF), or Namibia’s South West Africa People's Organisation (Swapo). The former now rules in coalition, while Zanu-PF and Swapo retain power, though with their share of the official vote greatly reduced. CCM faced such a threat in 2015, when it received its lowest-ever share of the vote. Having since neutered Tanzania’s opposition through administrative, legal, and extra-legal means, Hassan will likely face no outbreaks of large-scale violence after the polls, unlike neighboring Mozambique, which saw acute violence after the disputed polls of October 2024 when charismatic opposition figurehead Venâncio Mondlane was able to bring supporters to the streets. 

Mondlane’s Tanzanian equivalent, Tundu Lissu, leader of the opposition Chadema party, has been in jail since April on treason charges. Meanwhile, his party has been barred from contesting the election, and its activities have been restricted by court order. Since Lissu was elected as party leader in January 2025, the party’s position has been that without electoral and constitutional reform, there should be no election.¹ However, in April, the party was banned from participating in the election for refusing to sign an ethics pledge, while since June this year, a court order has restricted its day-to-day political activities.² Consequently, CCM will face only Alliance for Change and Transparency, also known as ACT Wazalendo, and Chama cha Ukombozi wa Umma (Chaumma) — two parties accused of being stooges for CCM.³ In this way, CCM should avoid the fate of other liberation parties. Hassan is eligible for just one more five-year term, so the internal opposition that she has faced will likely now focus on the race to find her successor. 

Arrest and abduction as political instruments

Hassan came to power on the death of her predecessor, President John Magufuli, in March 2021. As vice president, her elevation to the presidency should have been automatic after Magufuli’s death, but that was not the case. Elements within the state apparatus and CCM initially tried to block her succession, and she secured office only with the backing of the chief of the defense forces against elements within CCM that sought to block her.⁴ It was thus clear that she faced considerable opposition, both from other parties and from within her own. 

She initially rolled back oppressive measures Magufuli had introduced, such as certain restrictions on the media, in an effort to distance herself from him and re-establish relations with Western powers in particular, which her predecessor had ignored.⁵ Yet by 2022, her government had not just returned to repressive measures against opponents as established by her predecessor, but increased their use — particularly in Mainland Tanzania (see graph below).

In Mainland Tanzania, the state has most recently targeted Chadema through violence and forced disappearances, reflected in ACLED’s data on repression, as well as through arrests and lawfare. For example, Chadema activist Mohammed Ali Kibao was kidnapped, tortured, and killed in September 2024 in a killing widely attributed to state authorities, which police say they are investigating.⁶ The previous month, another Chadema activist, Deusdedith Soka, was abducted and has not been seen since.⁷ Authorities have also taken action against party activities. In August 2024, party leaders were beaten and arrested by police, preventing a youth rally in Mbeya.⁸ In April 2025, party leader Lissu was arrested on treason and sedition charges.⁹ Lissu was targeted before: In 2017, suspected state agents shot him at least 16 times.¹⁰ He remains in detention. 

The relatively even distribution of these events across the most populated areas of Mainland Tanzania indicates that there is no significant regional or ethnic basis to political contestation in Tanzania (see map below). The focus of pre-election repression in Mainland Tanzania reflects CCM’s historically hegemonic position there, in contrast to Zanzibar, where power-sharing between the two largest parties has been constitutionally mandated since 2010. Unlike Mainland Tanzania, Zanzibar is also constitutionally a separate state with its own constitution and presidency. 

Chadema has no significant support in Zanzibar, where ACT Wazalendo sits in government with CCM as the second party. Opposition to CCM in Zanzibar has historically been very strong, and previous elections for the Zanzibar presidency were closely contested. Although power sharing in Zanzibar has likely abated sustained mobilization by CCM opponents, elections have routinely spurred short-lived outbreaks of violence since CCM and its Zanzibar-based predecessor, the Afro-Shirazi party, came to dominate politics on the archipelago in 1964. Party support in Zanzibar is evenly split between CCM, for which the union with Zanzibar is a core tenet, and the opposition, which seeks greater autonomy. Consequently, as in most election years, some violence can be expected in October.

Facing the opposition within

Since coming into power, Hassan has struggled to exert control over the security forces. Under her watch, there have been four heads of the intelligence service, out of the 12 that have led the service since the country gained independence in 1961, indicating the extent to which she has faced resistance across the establishment. 

The public strand of internal opposition to Hassan has crystallized around the alleged role of the intelligence apparatus in the abduction and disappearance of opponents and the need for electoral reforms. Humphrey Polepole, formerly a CCM parliamentarian, senior party official, and ambassador, and preacher and parliamentarian Josephat Gwajima have taken issue with state actions against opposition activists, including the jailing of Lissu, the most prominent opposition leader. Gwajima has specifically focused on the intelligence services’ involvement in abductions. He alleges that turnover at the head of the intelligence services is due to some appointed being unwilling to be involved in such actions. Polepole accuses Hassan’s faction of taking control of party mechanisms, as well as the security apparatus.¹¹ Polepole himself was abducted in Dar es Salaam on 5 October, less than one month before the election.¹² Though the perpetrators are unknown, such abductions are normally assumed to be undertaken by elements of the intelligence service believed to be loyal to Hassan.  

Unrest in response to CCM’s process for selecting general election candidates suggests that divisions in the party are deep, a development seen clearly in ACLED data on election-related violence. This year saw notable outbreaks of disorder related to candidate selection, including abductions, episodes of mob violence, and other violent demonstrations. While protest is common during the process, violence is highly unusual, reflecting widespread unease within the party. ACLED records no such violence for CCM’s candidate selection process in 2020. Such violence more likely reflects internal struggles for control of the party, as much as enthusiasm to get a lucrative seat in parliament. 

A sure victory for Hassan and CCM 

Through sustained repression in the years since Hassan ascended to the presidency, victory in October’s poll will maintain CCM’s hegemony in Mainland Tanzania and its position as the leading party in Zanzibar, even if in a power-sharing government. Electorally, it will be the last of the liberation parties with sweeping control of all branches of government. Yet the extent of that control has become the issue around which opposition has long campaigned, and which at least some elements in the ruling party are questioning. If voices calling for constitutional reform that would fundamentally restructure the state gather momentum after the election, CCM’s domestic hegemony would be threatened. Losing ground on those issues could see the party finally follow the path of other liberation movements and find ways to cede some power in order to remain in control. 

Further opposition activism after the election will be addressed as it has been in recent years: through arrests, disappearances, and administrative measures. Within CCM, dissent will likely dissipate in the wake of the elections as leaders and members concentrate on the selection of a candidate for the 2030 elections. 

After the elections, with CCM still in office and with a hamstrung opposition, Tanzania will retain some influence with states in southern Africa. Domestically, however, an election without popular legitimacy risks sharpening divisions within the party that may hasten the constitutional reforms advocated by Lissu and others. At the center of these is limiting the powers of the president and giving Mainland Tanzania a constitutional status similar to that of Zanzibar. Whether the election precipitates a further push for such reforms may determine CCM’s future as the last hegemonic liberation party in southern Africa.