{"id":6820,"date":"2021-03-19T15:04:42","date_gmt":"2021-03-19T14:04:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thedailyleaks.com\/?p=6820"},"modified":"2021-03-19T18:05:05","modified_gmt":"2021-03-19T17:05:05","slug":"tanzania-first-female-president-hassan-urges-unity-after-death-of-covid-sceptic-magufuli","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedailyleaks.com\/tanzania-first-female-president-hassan-urges-unity-after-death-of-covid-sceptic-magufuli\/","title":{"rendered":"Tanzania first female president, Hassan, urges unity after death of COVID sceptic Magufuli"},"content":{"rendered":"
Tanzania’s new President Samia Suluhu Hassan said on Friday the country should unite and avoid pointing fingers after the death of John Magufuli, her COVID-19 sceptic predecessor, urging the east African country to look forward with hope and confidence.<\/p>\n
Wearing a red hijab, she took her oath of office on the Koran in a ceremony at State House in the commercial capital Dar es Salaam. She is the first female head of state in the country of 58 million.<\/p>\n
Vice president since 2015, Hassan gave a brief and sombre address after she was sworn in, addressing a heavily male crowd that included two former presidents and uniformed officers.<\/p>\n
“This is a time to bury our differences, and be one as a nation,” she said. “This is not a time for finger pointing, but it is a time to hold hands and move forward together.”<\/p>\n
The remarks appeared aimed at dispelling a national mood of uncertainty that developed after Magufuli, criticised by opponents as a divisive and authoritarian figure, disappeared from public view for 18 days before his death was announced.<\/p>\n
His absence from national life drew speculation he was critically ill with COVID-19. Magufuli died of heart disease, Hassan said when announcing his death on Wedneday.<\/p>\n
ALSO READ:\u00a0Tanzania President John Pombe Magufuli dies at 61<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Among the first challenges facing Hassan, 61, will be a decision on whether to procure COVID-19 vaccines. Under her predecessor, the government said it would not obtain any vaccines until the country’s own experts had reviewed them, Reuters<\/a> said.<\/p>\n World Health Organisation (WHO) head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus tweeted congratulations to Hassan and said he looked forward to working with her to keep people safe from COVID-19. Tanzania stopped reporting coronavirus data in May last year, frustrating the WHO.<\/p>\n Team player Hassan succeeds Tanzania’s blunt-spoken Magufuli Described as a soft-spoken consensus-builder, Hassan will be the first president born in Zanzibar, the archipelago that forms part of the union of the Republic of Tanzania.<\/p>\n Her leadership style is seen as a potential contrast from Magufuli, a brash populist who earned the nickname ‘Bulldozer’ for muscling through policies and who drew criticism for his intolerance of dissent, which his government denied.<\/p>\n She praised the late leader in her remarks, describing him as her mentor, but also thanked the opposition for their “wishes of strength, comfort and solidarity” after Magufuli’s death.<\/p>\n She later visited Magufuli’s widow Janet.<\/p>\n Lawyer Fatma Karume said Hassan’s remarks suggested she was taking pains to sound conciliatory and not to isolate Magufuli’s supporters.<\/p>\n Elsie Eyakuze, a columnist and consultant, said Hassan’s inauguration made many Tanzanians happy. “This is just not some kind of token appointment. She\u2019s a competent woman, she\u2019s been working for four decades in a public capacity,” she said.<\/p>\n Rights groups say Magufuli’s six-year-rule was marred by arbitrary arrests, suspension of critical television and radio stations and the blocking of social media and other abuses.<\/p>\n New York-based Human Rights Watch said Tanzania now had a chance to revive its democracy and reverse the country’s “downward human rights trajectory” under Magufuli.<\/p>\n DaMina Advisors, a political risk advisory firm, predicted the new president was likely to make a public U-turn on her predecessor’s policy of COVID-19 denial and his generally negative attitudes toward foreign investors.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Tanzania’s new President Samia Suluhu Hassan said on Friday the country should unite and avoid pointing fingers after the death of John Magufuli, her COVID-19 sceptic predecessor, urging the east African country to look forward […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6821,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,10,2,7],"tags":[],"coauthors":[25],"class_list":{"0":"post-6820","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-latest-news","8":"category-politics","9":"category-top-news","10":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n
\nHassan will also have the task of healing a country polarized during the Magufuli years, analysts said. She may face challenges building a political base to govern, given competing factions in her ruling party jostling for primacy after Magufuli centralised power around himself, analysts say.<\/p>\n