Tanzania's first female president has defied early hopes that she would ease repression

KAMPALA – Less than six months after Samia Suluhu Hassan was inaugurated as Tanzania’s first woman president in 2021, the country’s most famous cartoonist depicted her in a military general’s uniform under the title “Dictatoress.”

In the cartoon by Tanzanian-born Gado, drawn from his base in Kenya where there is more press freedom, Hassan looks at her image in a mirror and sees herself as holding a torch — perhaps of liberty — when actually she wields a spiked club.

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A former vice president who rose to the presidency after the death of predecessor John Pombe Magufuli, Hassan initially gave indications that she would relax the government’s repressive tactics against opposition leaders, civic groups, journalists and others.

But as Hassan seeks her first properly ele