Public Figure: Let’s Meet Tanzania’s First Female President, Samia Suluhu

Public Figure: Let’s Meet Tanzania’s First Female President, Samia Suluhu.

Africano Trumpeters Media, “Kutoka kwa vyombo vya habari vya watangazaji wa Afrika( Tanzanian, Swahili)”, says happy weekend to all our readers and let’s go there.

Our this week public figure and African heroine of people is new President of Tanzania, Samia Suluhu Hassan.

Samia Suluhu Hassan:

Samia Suluhu Hassan (born 27 January 1960) is a Tanzanian politician who is serving as the sixth and current president of Tanzania. She is a member of the ruling social-democrat Chama Cha Mapinduzi(CCM) party. Suluhu is the third female head of government of an East African Community(EAC) country, after Sylvie Kinigi in Burundiand Agathe Uwilingiyimana in Rwanda, and is also the first female president of Tanzania. She took office on 19 March 2021 after the death of President John Magufuli on 17 March 2021.

A native of Zanzibar, Suluhu served as a minister in the semi-autonomous region during the administration of President Amani Karume. She served as the Member of Parliament for the Makunduchi constituency from 2010 to 2015 and was the Minister of State in the Vice-President’s Office for Union Affairs from 2010 to 2015. In 2014, she was elected as the Vice-Chairperson of the Constituent Assembly tasked with the drafting of the country’s new constitution.

Suluhu became Tanzania’s first female vice-president following the 2015 general election, after being elected on the CCM ticket with President Magufuli. Suluhu and Magufuli were re-elected to a second term in 2020. She briefly served as the second female interim Head of State in the EAC – 27 years after Sylvie Kinigi of Burundi, spanning a period around the end of the year 1993.

Early life:
Suluhu was born on 27 January 1960 in Makunduchi, an old town on Unguja island, in the Sultanate of Zanzibar.
She completed her secondary education in 1977 and began working. Subsequently, she pursued a number of short-courses on a part-time basis. In 1986, she graduated from the Institute of Development Management (present-day Mzumbe University) with an advanced diploma in public administration.
Between 1992 and 1994, she attended the University of Manchester and earned a postgraduate diploma in economics. In 2015, she obtained her MSc in Community Economic Development via a joint-programme between the Open University of Tanzania and the Southern New Hampshire University.

Career:
After her secondary school education, she was employed by the Ministry of Planning and Development as a clerk. Upon graduation with her public administration degree, she was employed on a project funded by the World Food Programme.

Political career:
In 2000, she decided to run for public office. 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 she was female. 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.

In July 2015, CCM’s presidential nomineeJohn Magufuli chose her as his running mate for the 2015 election, making her the first female running mate in the party’s history. On 5 November 2015 she subsequently became the first female vice-president in the history of the country upon Magufuli’s victory in the election. Both Magufuli and Suluhu were re-elected for a second five-year term on 28 October 2020.

On 17 March 2021, Suluhu announced that Magufuli had died after a long illness; Magufuli had not been seen in public since late February. She was sworn in as his successor on 19 March 2021, and will serve the balance of Magufuli’s second five-year term. The delay in the start of her term came because the Constitution of Tanzania explicitly requires the vice-president to take the presidential oath before ascending to the presidency; opposition leaders had expressed concern about a possible “vacuum” when 18 March passed without Suluhu being sworn in. Upon her swearing-in, Suluhu became Tanzania’s first female president. She is also the second Zanzibari to hold the post, and the third Muslim after Ali Hassan Mwinyi and Jakaya Kikwete. She also became one of two serving female heads of state in Africa, alongside Ethiopia’s Sahle-Work Zewde. Under the Constitution, since she took office with more than three years remaining in Magufuli’s term, if she completes this term she will only be eligible for one full term in her own right should she decide to stand at the next election.

Personal life:
In 1978, Suluhu married Hafidh Ameir, an agricultural officer who, by 2014, had retired. They have four children. Her daughter Wanu Hafidh Ameir (born 1982), the couple’s second child, is a special seat member of the Zanzibar House of Representatives.

(Source: Wikipedia).