NAIROBI (Reuters) -Tanzania’s president promised on Friday to investigate violence during last month’s elections and offered condolences to bereaved families, in her most public acknowledgement to date of the impact of the clashes.
Samia Suluhu Hassan said the state would set up a commission and work towards “reconciliation and peace”. There was no immediate reaction from the main opposition party, CHADEMA, which has said security forces killed more than 1,000 people.
The U.N. said this week it believes hundreds were killed during the protests, which were driven by the exclusion of the two leading opposition candidates and what activists called a crackdown on dissent – charges dismissed by the government.
In her first address to parliament since winning the October 29 election with almost 98% of the vote, Hassan called for a moment’s silence and told lawmakers: “I extend my condolences to all families who lost their loved ones.”
“The government has taken the step of establishing an inquiry commission to investigate what happened, so that we may know the root cause of the problem,” she added, without saying who was behind the violence.
The government has dismissed opposition statements on deaths and injuries as exaggerated, but not given its own estimates of the impact of the turmoil which plunged the East African country into its biggest political crisis in decades.
TREASON CHARGES
Maria Sarungi Tsehai, a Tanzanian activist living in Kenya, responded to Hassan’s remarks by calling on the president to step down.
“This savagery, this atrocity that you and your gang committed, must give a way! There is no peace without justice,” she wrote on X.
State prosecutors have charged hundreds of young people with treason for their alleged involvement in the protests.
Hassan said on Friday that some “did not know what they were doing” and asked prosecutors to drop charges against those who “merely followed the crowd”.
African Union observers said voting was marred by ballot box stuffing.
The government has rejected accusations of widespread rights abuses and defended the conduct of security forces in responding to the protests. It has also said the vote was fair.
Last year, Hassan ordered an investigation into reports that government critics had been abducted, but no findings have yet been released.
Tanzania, which produces copper and gold, expects 6% economic growth this year, partly driven by the construction of roads, railways and power plants.
(Writing by Vincent Mumo Nzilani and Elias Biryabarema; Editing by Aaron Ross and Andrew Heavens)
