Tanzania To Get New President Today

Tanzania’s Vice President Samia Suluhu Hassan (61) is set to be sworn in as President o Friday, March 19, 2021.

Hassan will be sworn in at 10 am at State House Tanzania to take over from the late President John Pombe Magufuli who died on Wednesday.

“After being sworn in, Her Excellency Samia Suluhu Hassan will address the nation through the media before holding a Cabinet meeting,” a statement from State House Tanzania read.

She was elected as Magufuli's running mate in 2015, and the duo was re-elected in 2020 during the General elections.

According to the constitution, she should serve out the rest of the five-year term in the top job. Hassan becomes Africa's only current female president.

She is affectionately referred to as Mama Samia - in Tanzanian culture that reflects the respect she is held in, rather than reducing her to a gendered role.

She began her political career in 2000 with an election to the Zanzibar House of Representative.

Her Journey Into Politics

She was immediately appointed minister of trade and tourism by then-President Amani Karume, becoming the only woman in a senior ministerial position in the Cabinet.

There her calm demeanour in managing occasional outbreaks of pandemonium and the way in which she dealt with some of the more outspoken members earned her acclamations.

Her journey in national politics began in 2014 when she was selected by then-President Jakaya Kikwete as the country’s minister for union affairs.

Hassan earned her first degree at Mzumbe University in Tanzania.

Later she got her higher learning degree at the University of Manchester in Britain, in economics and later an online degree from Southern New Hampshire University in the United States.

Hassan, a CCM member, would be expected to complete Magufuli’s second term.