John Magufuli in Pretoria in 2019
Photographer: Michele Spatari / AFP / Getty Images
Photographer: Michele Spatari / AFP / Getty Images
Tanzanian President John Magufuli, who received widespread criticism for his denial of the coronavirus pandemic, died just five months after winning a second term in a disputed election. He was 61 years old.
“We lost our brave leader, President John Magufuli, who died of heart disease,” Vice President Samia Suluhu Hassan told state television on Wednesday. She announced 14 days of national mourning.
Nicknamed “The Bulldozer” for his aggressive leadership style, Magufuli was praised from the beginning for fighting corruption, reducing wasteful government spending and improving the lives of peasants by waiving dozens of taxes. He also led the development of new transport links, power plants and more than 1,700 health centers, investments that have helped Tanzania’s economy to become one of the best performing in the world.
Magufuli also promoted controversial reforms with the aim of ensuring that the country obtained greater benefits from its natural resources, which put its government on a collision course with foreign mining companies. In 2017, authorities asked the local unit of Barrick Gold Corp. to pay a colossal $ 190 billion tax bill – a dispute the company resolved by paying $ 300 million and creating a mining joint venture with the state.
Magufuli became increasingly authoritarian as his first term progressed – he centralized power in the presidency and unapologetically repressed dissent and media freedom. He secured a second five-year term in October, when he won 84% of the vote, the biggest margin of victory for any presidential candidate in nearly three decades of multi-party elections in Tanzania.
The opposition rejected the result as fraudulent and the US Embassy in Tanzania said that credible allegations of fraud and intimidation, as well as the ruling party’s overwhelming victory, raised questions about the fairness of the election. Several opposition candidates were disqualified and the government instituted the closure of websites and social networks, which hampered their opponents’ campaigns.
Born on October 29, 1959, in the northwestern city of Chato, Magufuli worked as a professor and industrial chemist before venturing into politics. He won parliamentary elections in 1995 and held several cabinet posts before the governing party Chama Cha Mapinduzi chose him as his candidate to succeed President Jakaya Kikwete in 2015.
International consternation with the Magufuli government focused on his unorthodox approach to dealing with Covid-19. He insisted that the country was free of the disease, discouraged the use of face masks and advised his people to pray and do steam therapy to protect their health. While most of the rest of the world clamored for access to vaccines, his government avoided them and said it was working on the development of alternative natural remedies.
Tanzania stopped publishing infection data in April 2020, making it impossible to determine the severity of the epidemic. The flood of patients showing symptoms of coronavirus seeking treatment in public hospitals and daily funeral Masses indicates that Magufuli severely minimized what was clearly a major public health crisis.