Episode #2 Depicting the moral infamy of Samia Suluhu Hassan through a press cartoon by Gado on 1 November 2025
Marie-Aude FOUÉRÉ & Nicodemus MINDE, “Episode #2 Depicting the moral infamy of Samia Suluhu Hassan through a press cartoon by Gado on 1 November 2025” Mambo! no. 107, 2026
On 1 November 2025, a press cartoon by artist Gado stroke a chord. It showed Tanzania’s president-elect, Samia Suluhu Hassan, being sworn in before the Chief Justice, one hand holding the Quran, the other resting on the Constitution, standing on a pile of bloody corpses that the carpet covering them fails to hide. The president-elect’s hands, clothes, and even the Quran itself are stained with blood. Armed men with fierce expressions, masked faces, and skull-adorned berets protect the president and secure the inauguration ceremony.

Press cartoon by Gado, published on November 1, 2025, on his Instagram account: https://www.instagram.com/p/DQlMMdtjG97/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
Gado (Godfrey Mwampemba by his real name), a Tanzanian editorial cartoonist who has lived in Nairobi for many years, is renowned for his sharp visual representations of East African political life.[1] In this cartoon, he sketched key elements of the Tanzanian general elections of October 2025, which clearly depict the horror of the repression that occurred and the tarnished honor of Samia Suluhu Hassan. He posted this cartoon on his Instagram account on Saturday, November 1st, just three days after the election on Wednesday, October 29. November 1st was the day the Electoral Commission officially announced Samia Suluhu Hassan’s victory in the Tanzanian presidential election. Gado published this cartoon without waiting for the official inauguration ceremony, which was hastily organized and took place two days later, on the morning of Monday, November 3, in Dodoma.[2] It is therefore not a representation of the ceremony that actually took place, but a drawing that anticipates it and seeks to capture, beyond the factuality of the event, the ignominy of a presidential inauguration backed by terror and death.
To understand Gado’s cartoon, we need to look at it and the events it depicts in the context of the three days between the election and the announcement of the results. It was a period of uncertainty, anxiety, and near-total information blackout, as polling stations were deserted and protests began on election day in Tanzania’s major cities and continued until the results were announced. It was also a period of fierce repression against protesting youth, but the extent and intensity of this repression were largely concealed by the shutdown of the internet, social media, and international phone calls (Minde, 2025). This shutdown began in the late afternoon of October 29 and lasted for a week, and a curfew was imposed in Dar es Salaam, the country’s commercial capital. Maritime links between mainland Tanzania and insular Tanzania (i.e., the Zanzibar archipelago) were halted and international travel was interrupted. Gado, who lives in Nairobi and was not in Tanzania during these days of terror, obtained information mainly by telephone, and, although it was fragmentary, he understood that the violence was acute and the victims numerous.[3]
This analysis, which takes political cartooning seriously (Limb & Olaniyan, 2018; Lent 2009) and seeks to understand what can and cannot be drawn, and how, in a tight timeframe marked by uncertainty and shock, is based on a broader perspective on the general elections and the protests that accompanied them. Such an overview remains partial, however, as accurate and verified information is still lacking, as is the necessary perspective for a solid and detached analysis of a stunning electoral sequence—the conditions for which were nevertheless in place—in a country proud of its “peace and tranquility” (amani na utulivu, in Swahili), especially during election periods. Until now, the regime in power has exercised a subtle and paternalistic form of authoritarianism based on “well-established mechanisms that combine control of the institutional environment, control of the police and security forces, long-standing practices of clientelism, co-optation and evergetism (benefactions), and the use of the classic repertoires of Tanzanian nationalism” (Maingraud-Martinaud & Fouéré, 2015, p.145).
Gado’s drawing thus raises the following questions: Is this repressive episode of 2025, characterized by hundreds, if not thousands, of deaths, exceptional and limited in scope, or, on the contrary, a sign of the establishment of brutal authoritarianism, even “despotism” based on brute force (Collord, 2025)? And why, in 2025, was the regime once again unable—or unwilling—to “ensure its own succession without major upheaval, with cunning and efficiency” (Maingraud-Martinaud & Fouéré, 2015, p.145), as it had managed to do since the country’s independence? At the heart of the October 2025 protests and repression lies a broken moral economy[4] under pressure from authoritarian and predatory elites who have betrayed the most marginalized sections of Tanzanian society.
Focus 1: Bodies piled up under the ceremonial carpet
Piled up under the carpet, hidden but not really, lie the remains of protesters who were killed from the afternoon of election day until the inauguration ceremony on November 3, and even beyond. The atrocities committed targeted Tanzanian youth, who marched in large numbers in the streets of Tanzania’s main cities.[5] The photos and videos that were relayed outside Tanzania once the internet was restored, after a week-long blackout, showed that mainly young men protested—denouncing fraudulent elections and calling for the departure of the CCM (Chama cha Mapinduzi, the party of the revolution), the ruling party that has dominated Tanzanian political life since the country’s independence: “We don’t want the CCM” (Hatutaki CCM), “We’ve had enough of the CCM” (Tumechoka CCM). But in Dar es Salaam, Mwanza, Mbeya, and Arusha, protesters were being shot with live ammunition and killed. Others were beaten, injured, or humiliated, for example, forced to crawl on the ground under threat of batons and firearms.
The slogans chanted by the demonstrators and the looting and burning of targeted locations, such as gas stations and long-distance buses owned by politicians who are also businessmen accused of corruption, testify that behind the new president, Samia Suluhu Hassan, a whole entrenched system, an authoritarian and predatory “de facto party-state” (Makulilo, 2008) was being condemned. This party-state, heir to the practices of the single-party regime in Tanzania between 1964 and 1995, was accused of establishing a multiparty system that was merely a facade. When Tanzanian youth declared that they no longer wanted the CCM, they were certainly making a material demand against living conditions dominated by subsistence, but they were also denouncing the authoritarian hijacking of electoral democracy. The main opponents of Samia Suluhu Hassan were prevented from running for president through various machinations: disqualification on the pretext of missing documents, abduction and illegal detention, threats and torture, and even trials for treason. In particular Tundu Lissu,[6] leader of the Chadema party (Chama cha Demokrasia na Maendeleo, Party for Democracy and Progress) since January 2025. Lissu became very popular for his outspokenness and his calls for political morality against corruption and predatory elites—were prevented from running for president through various machinations: disqualification on the pretext of missing documents, abduction and illegal detention, threats and torture, and even trials for treason. During the election, there also appeared to be ballot stuffing, with protesters intercepting minibuses carrying pre-filled ballot boxes.
When, on Saturday, November 1st, the Electoral Commission announced Samia Suluhu Hassan’s victory in the Tanzanian presidential election with 98% of the vote and a 85%-turnout, the international community reacted with disbelief. These results, however, came as no surprise in Tanzania, where it was well known that the election was excluding the opposition and that the majority of voters boycotted the polls, despite the CCM’s proven electoral hegemony[7] since the introduction of multiparty politics in the mid-1990s. But it is less the indignity of a (false) electoral victory, in other words, rigged elections, which are nothing new in Tanzania, or even the scandalous figure of 98%, an insolent snub to the idea of a multiparty system, that is at the heart of Gado’s cartoon: the brutality, lethality, and blindness of the means used to achieve such a victory. Despite the still fragmentary information on the extent of the repression, Gado understood that it was unprecedented in the history of independent Tanzania. He also anticipated that Samia Suluhu Hassan would superbly ignore the massacre that had been committed—which the carpet symbolizes. On November 3, the day of the president-elect’s inauguration, while the mainstream media reported around 50 deaths, opponents and human rights activists cited figures of 3,000 deaths—rising to 4,000 a few days later, which explains the use of the term “massacre” that came to be used.[8] From then on, revelations about the actions taken to make the bodies disappear started to come out. There were reports of masked men raiding hospitals to finish off the wounded and overcrowded morgues to recover the bodies, of the discovery of mass graves and the secret cremation of corpses. On 6 November, Gado published a new cartoon focusing on mass graves (https://www.instagram.com/freedomcartoonists/p/DR44yXziFGx/), reflecting the concerns of the families of the disappeared and national and international human rights organizations denouncing the atrocities committed in the aftermath of the crackdown.
Focus 2: “I Samia Suluhu Hassan…”
In his cartoon of November 1st, Gado takes a scathing look at a hastily arranged inauguration ceremony by an unscrupulous Samia Suluhu Hassan, her hands still stained with blood, barely two days after the announcement of her victory and while the repression continues. This haste is meaningful: the Tanzanian Constitution prohibits contesting an election through legal channels once a new president has been inaugurated. It was therefore necessary to act quickly, while preventing the crowd from destabilizing the ceremony or even undermining the ruling power. The risk of a coup loomed over during the election cycle and needed to be thwarted. A few weeks before the elections, a man identifying himself as “Captain Tesha” claimed to be from the air force unit and issued a statement accusing the government of corruption and political interference within the army. In a video release, he encouraged people to protest and demand their rights (Lasteck, 2025). For the first time in the country’s history, the presidential inauguration was not being held in a stadium open to the public and which can accommodate large numbers of citizens. It took place behind closed doors, by invitation only, in the military quarters of Dodoma, the Tanzanian capital, a city largely deserted outside the high points of institutional political life (the vibrant heart of the country being Dar es Salaam).
If Samia Suluhu Hassan’s dishonor lies in the haste of her inauguration, in the secretive way it was organized, and in the outrage to the victims, it also lies, as Gado suggests, in religious desecration: the blood not only stains Samia Suluhu Hassan’s hands, it also stains her veil and defiles the Quran she holds in her right hand as she takes the oath of office. The day after the inauguration, echoing this cartoon, the cover of The Standard, a highly critical Kenyan daily newspaper, depicted Samia Suluhu Hassan taking the oath of office against a backdrop of fires, with the scathing headline: “A bloody crown.”[9] It seems like a long time ago now that, as Vice President of Tanzania, she succeeded John Magufuli, who had died in March 2021, and was affectionately known as “Mama Samia” as she established a style of governance that appeared to be more respectful of civil and political freedoms.
Does Samia Suluhu Hassan’s centrality in Gado’s cartoon, which is also evident in the international press coverage of the situation in Tanzania, accurately reflect the role she played during this election period? This question still remains relevant, while the reasons behind the terror that befell the protesters are still unclear.[10] One might look to Samia Suluhu Hassan’s political career to find the reasons for the shift towards repressive and murderous authoritarianism. Her career began in Zanzibar within the CCM; then she rose through the ranks to become a member of parliament for her native region (she comes from Makunduchi, in the southern region of Unguja Island) in the Tanzanian Parliament, then Minister of State for Union Affairs. Psychological interpretations emphasize the deleterious effects that the discrimination and humiliation suffered by Samia Suluhu Hassan may have had on her, as a woman in a world of macho, ambitious men, particularly after she became Vice President in 2015. While such explanatory threads should be taken seriously, it is important to link them to the internal dynamics of the party-state as a field of struggle and power relations between competing factions, which are known to weigh heavily on the exercise of power, with games of influence involving not only politicians in the strict sense, but also high-ranking law enforcement officials who are part of the Tanzanian state-party.
In other words, despite the strong presidentialism enshrined in a constitution that has remained untouched since 1977, it is necessary to open the black box of decision-making behind the 2025 crackdown by looking beyond Samia Suluhu Hassan and ask: What role did the clique of close associates surrounding Samia Suluhu Hassan play, including her son Abdul Hafidh Ameir, who is said to have set up a personal militia to serve his mother, as well as several strongmen from a political-economic network originating in Zanzibar, including her current right-hand man, Waziri Salum Rajabu, and her personal advisor, Haji Omar Kheir (Chachage, 2025; Chahali , 2025)? How much influence did the faction within the CCM that supported and protected Samia Suluhu Hassan, led by former president Jakaya Kikwete, a highly influential figure in national politics, have? Kikwete’s two terms as head of state, from 2005 to 2015, were marked by the largest corruption scandals Tanzania had ever seen. What about the powerful figures within the army and, even more so, the police force? Finally, what about foreign and regional actors? These questions bring us back to a third striking element of Gado’s cartoon.
Focus 3: Men in arms, masked and unrecognizable
Armed men, terrifying, wearing in berets, scarves and sunglasses concealing their faces, flank and monitor Samia Suluhu Hassan’s inauguration ceremony. They are also, as Gado himself explains,[11] the ones in charge of the deadly repression of the previous days. And they are the ones who, as shown in the cartoon of November 6, protect the operations designed to make the bodies disappear. Uncertainty surrounds their identity between the election and the announcement of the results, which is why Gado drew them wearing black fatigues, making them unrecognizable. Are they Tanzanian police forces? Soldiers? Or rather militiamen? Are they Tanzanian or from elsewhere? The information that filtered through during the days of brutal repression provides some clues.
First, part of the army reportedly supported the protesters and tried to protect the young people who took to the streets, without fully demonstrating with them or turning the protests into a real attempt to overthrow the government or stage a coup. Street scenes captured during the protest show soldiers marching side by side proudly with demonstrators.[12] Secondly, it appears that police officers, rather than the army, were the main perpetrators of the violence and killings against the protesting population. As early as November, police officers, known to be the shadow agents of the state party’s dirty work, were identified and named by civil and human rights organizations for their alleged role in the crackdown. A list of the “100 most dangerous people in Tanzania” (Watu hatari Tanzania), also described as “murderers,” “kidnappers,” and “thieves” (Wauji, Watekaji, Wafiraji), circulated on social media about ten days after the president’s inauguration, repeating the list established for a petition filed with the International Criminal Court by a coalition of civil society and legal defense organizations calling for an investigation into the crimes committed during the last elections. Finally, the day after the election, information circulated that some of those involved in the repression were not Tanzanians but foreigners, with the repeated hypothesis that neighboring Uganda had sent troops to assist the Tanzanian authorities. With the Ugandan general elections looming in mid-January 2026, it was reported that the fall of the Tanzanian regime should not inspire Ugandan youth, as 81-year-old President Yoweri Museveni was running for another term after 40 years of repressive and authoritarian rule.
If we can say, with hindsight, that it was terribly risky to take to the streets in protest, it is because we realize that the highly repressive response of the regime in power was undoubtedly already prepared, and not the result of a spur-of-the-moment reaction, let alone a slip-up, as suggested by some analysts. Yet the hypothesis can be put forward that the deadly intensity observed may result in part from the identity of the actors mobilized to repress the protests, that is, lawless law enforcement officers and militiamen on the one hand, and non-Tanzanian agents on the other. The repeated warnings during the election campaign by Samia Suluhu Hassan and the most high-ranking officers of the security forces, who insisted that such demonstrations would not be tolerated, appear to have been supported by the solid organization of the crackdown in advance, but the exact mechanics of this remain to be studied. Was a popular uprising conceivable, if not underway? Was the scenario of an armed coup plausible? And what support did the neighboring authoritarian regimes of Uganda and Kenya provide, given the growing a “fraternity of power”[13] or “authoritarian solidarity”[14] at the regional level, which specifically targets human rights activism and protest movements? These questions remain unanswered as Tanzanian society mourns, demands justice for its dead, and seeks to return to normal life. On 9 December, which celebrates Independence Day, while activists called for peaceful demonstrations, the streets of Dar es Salaam remained completely deserted.
| This series of Mambo! focuses on the 2025 election year in Tanzania. It offers an original format for a close reading of politically-related empirical objects linked to this eventful election year, marked by a shift toward massive state violence. In each episode, the selected object is reproduced in its original form and translated where necessary, carefully contextualized and closely annotated or commented with the aim of providing keys to understanding its production, meaning and significance. These objects constitute relevant sources or documents for analysing the openly brutal authoritarian turn taken by the Tanzanian regime during this electoral sequence at the end of 2025. |
References
Cheeseman, N., Lynch, G., & Willis, J. (2020). The moral economy of elections in Africa. Democracy, voting and virtue. Cambridge University Press.
Chachage, C. (2025, November 8). Tragic October 29: Tanzania’s turning point? The Chanzo. https://thechanzo.com/2025/11/08/tragic-october-29-tanzanias-turning-point/
Chahali, E. (2025, November 20). Intelligence profile of Haji Omar Kheir: Presidential adviser during Tanzania’s ongoing post-election massacre with three decades of Zanzibar violence allegations against him. Ujasusi Blog. https://www.ujasusi.com/p/haji-omar-kheir-tanzania-presidential-adviser-massacre-allegations
Collord, M. (2025, November 4). After the coronation. Africa is a Country. https://africasacountry.com/2025/11/after-the-coronation
Gado (2012). Crisis…? What crisis?!@2005-2012. A Collection of Gado’s editorial cartoons, published in the Daily Nation, the Sunday Nation and the EastAfrican from 2005 to 2011. Buni Media.
Gado (2018). Gado (Godfrey Mwampembwa, Kenya/Tanzania). In P. Limb & T. Olaniyan (Eds.), Taking African cartoons seriously: Politics, satire, and culture (pp. 179-186). Michigan State University Press.
Lasteck, A. (2025, October 6). “Tanzania issues social media warning after video calls for military ‘action’.” BBC. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62lj51kj2jo
Lent, J. A. (Ed.). Cartooning in Africa. Hampton Press.
Limb, P., & Olaniyan, T. (Eds.). 2018. Taking African cartoons seriously: Politics, satire, and culture. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press
Levitksy, S., & Way, L. (2010). Competitive authoritarianism: Hybrid regimes after the Cold War. Cambridge University Press.
Maingraud-Martinaud, C. & Fouéré, M.-A. (2015). Une hégémonie compétitive contre vents et marée : Les élections générales de 2015 en Tanzanie. Politique africaine 140(4), 145-163. https://doi.org/10.3917/polaf.140.0145
Makulilo, A. (2008). Tanzania: A de facto one party state? VDM Verlag.
Minde, N. (2025, November 5). Denied fair elections, Tanzanians make their mark through protests. ISS Today. https://issafrica.org/iss-today/denied-fair-elections-tanzanians-make-their-mark-through-protests
Morse, Y. L. (2014). Party matters: The institutional origins of competitive hegemony in Tanzania. Democratization, 21(4), 655-677. https://doi.org/10.1080/13510347.2013.764285
Riedl, R. B. (2014). Authoritarian origins of democratic party systems in Africa. Cambridge University Press.
Schedler, A. (2006). Electoral authoritarianism: The dynamics of unfree competition. Lynne Rienner Publishers.
Siméant, J. (2015). Three bodies of moral economy: The diffusion of a concept. Journal of Global Ethics, 11(2):163-175. DOI: 10.1080/17449626.2015.1054559 (Originally published as: Siméant, J. (2010). ‘Économie morale’ et protestation? Détours africains. Genèses, 81(4), 142-160).
Notes
[1] See, for example, “Tanzanian Cartoonist Has a Stick for Every Powerful Eye,” The New York Times, May1, 2020; “A true culture of editorial cartoons is developing throughout the region: Kenyan politicians under the fierce pen of Gado,” Le Monde, June 16, 2022; see also Gado (2012, 2018).
[2] See, in this series, episode 3 on Samia Hassan Suluhu’s speech at her inauguration ceremony as President of the United Republic of Tanzania.
[3] Interview with Gado, November 6, 2025, Nairobi.
[4] On the uses of the concept of “moral economy” in African studies, see in particular Siméant (2015). On its revival in thinking about electoral issues in Africa, see Cheeseman et al. (2020).
[5] A distinction is made between mainland Tanzania (which corresponds to the territory of the former Tanganyika) and island Tanzania, namely the Zanzibar archipelago, consisting mainly of the islands of Unguja and Pemba. In 2025, only mainland Tanzania was affected by electoral and post-electoral protests.
[6] Tundu Lissu is a lawyer and member of the Chadema party, a fierce critic of former president John Magufuli (2015-2021) who, in 2017, was the victim of an assassination attempt in which he nearly lost his life. See episode 1 of this series on Tundu Lissu’s speech prior to his arrest and imprisonment in April 2025.
[7] On electoral authoritarianism and hybrid regimes, see in particular Schedler 2006, Levitksy & Way (2010), and Riedl (2014). On competitive hegemony in Tanzania, see Morse (2014).
[8] This was the case during the discussion, “At Breaking Point: Tanzania’s 2025 election unrest & the deepening crackdown on dissent,” organized on the evening of November 3, 2025, on X-Space by The Resistance Bureau, featuring mainly Tanzanian and Kenyan human rights activists.
[9] The Standard, “A Bloody Crown,” 4 November 2025. See, in this series, episode 4 on the front pages of the Kenyan Standard during this repressive election period in 2025.
[10] President Samia Suluhu Hassan has formed a commission of inquiry to probe the events following the disputed elections.
[11] Interview with Gado, November 6, 2025, Nairobi.
[12] A recent survey by Afrobarometer shows that African youth see military coups as an alternative because of growing disillusionment with democracy and widespread government corruption: https://www.afrobarometer.org/articles/young-africans-show-tolerance-for-military-intervention-a-wake-up-call-afrobarometer-ceo-tells-german-leaders/
[13] The Standard, November 4, 2025.
[14] BBC, “Are East African governments uniting to silence dissent?” June 27, 2025, https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gk7435xl0o.
OpenEdition vous propose de citer ce billet de la manière suivante :
Marie-Aude Fouéré, Nicodemus Minde (4 mars 2026). Episode #2 Depicting the moral infamy of Samia Suluhu Hassan through a press cartoon by Gado on 1 November 2025. Mambo ! Consulté le 16 avril 2026 à l’adresse https://doi.org/10.58079/15t4m



