Tanzania’s main opposition party, the Party for Democracy and Progress (Chadema), held its first major rally in the country on Saturday to mark the 30th anniversary of the party’s political registration, seven years after the Tanzanian government banned the right of assembly for opposing parties.
The ban, issued by autocrat John Magufuli in 2016, was lifted mid-month by the country’s president, Samia Suluhu Hasan. Magufuli succumbed in March 2021 to complications arising from COVID-19 after having «prescribed» in previous months a string of herbal treatments of never proven efficacy.
The march prior to the rally, held in the city of Mwanza, in the north of the country, on the shores of Lake Victoria, was also led by another historic opponent, the president of Chadema, Freeman Mbowe.
Mbowe, it should be recalled, was released in March last year after spending more than seven months in custody following his arrest, precisely in this same town, on terrorism charges which his party denounced as political persecution.
Only three days after the lifting of the ban, the historical opponent Tindu Lissu, former leader of Chadema, announced his return to the country on January 25 after more than five years of exile after surviving an assassination attempt.
Before the rally, Chadema’s secretary general, John John Mnyika, thanked Tanzanians for the support shown for three decades and announced his intention to win the next elections, initially scheduled for 2025, with the intention of bringing «change, freedom and justice to the country», according to a message posted on his Twitter account.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
