Samia Suluhu Hassan became the sixth President of Tanzania and the first Zanzibari and female president, after the untimely death of president elect, John Pombe Magufuli who passed on, on March 17.
Suluhu, who was the 10th and the first female Vice President of Tanzania next in line to president Magufuli, will be sworn in as the next Tanzanian president to complete Magufuli’s presidential term up to 2025 as stipulated in the Tanzanian Constitution.
According to the Constitution, Suluhu is mandated to control of the office of president where the office becomes vacant by reason of death, resignation, loss of electoral qualifications or inability to perform his functions due to physical infirmity or failure to discharge the duties and functions of the office of president.
The constitution further reveals that the vice president will be sworn in and become next president in order to complete the unexpired period of the term of five years
History comes at a time when the Tanzanian president has died due to heart complication in Dar- Salam only weeks when he was lost in public eye
Samia Hassan who is now the Tanzanian interim president made the announcement about president Magufuli’s death on the state television earlier yesterday.
In July 2015, Chama Cha Mapinduzi’s (CCM) presidential nominee John Magufuli now the late chose Suluhu as his running mate for the 2015 election, making her the first female running mate in the party’s history.
She subsequently became the first female vice-president in the history of the country upon Magufuli’s victory in the election and were both reelected to a second term in 2020.
Chama Cha Mapinduzi is one of the dominate ruling parties in Tanzania and the second longest ruling party in Africa behind Liberia’s True Whig Party. CCM was formed in 1977 between Tanganyika African National Union (TANU) and the Afro Shirazi Party (ASP) alliance.
Before her tenure as vice-president she served as the Member of Parliament for Makunduchi constituency from 2010 to 2015, and was also the Minister of State in the Vice-President’s Office for Union Affairs from 2010 to 2015.
Prior to this, she had served as a minister in the semi-autonomous region of Zanzibar in the administration of President Amani Karume. In 2014, she was elected as the Vice Chairperson of the Constituent Assembly tasked with drafting the country’s new constitution
Suluhu had decided to join politics in 2000, were She was elected as a special seat member to the Zanzibar House of Representatives and was appointed a minister by President Amani Karume.
She was the only high-ranking woman minister in the cabinet and was “looked down on” by her male colleagues because of her gender. She was re-elected in 2005 and was re-appointed as a minister in another portfolio. In 2010, she sought election to the National Assembly, standing in the parliamentary constituency of Makunduchi and winning by more than 80%. President Jakaya Kikwete appointed her as the Minister of State for Union Affairs. In 2014, she was elected as the Vice Chairperson of the Constituent Assembly tasked with drafting the country’s new constitution.
