Do we like them?

Do we like Samia Suluhu Hassan?

Our score: 3 out of 10. Real good on girls' schooling and clean cooking, set against a disputed election and post-election violence that an official inquiry counted at 518 deaths.

Then came the October 2025 election. She was declared the winner with nearly 98 per cent of the vote, while opposition leader Tundu Lissu was kept off the ballot and stayed in custody. African Union observers said the vote fell short of democratic standards and documented ballot stuffing. Protests followed, at least 145 people were charged with treason, and opposition and rights activists say security forces killed more than 1,000 people, a figure the government disputes.

In April 2026 a government-appointed commission reported at least 518 deaths, said the toll was not final, and did not say who was responsible. Opposition and religious groups say thousands died. She said the violence was premeditated and suggested foreign actors were behind it. Back in January she expressed regret over the six-day internet shutdown, but still said “Our response was essential to maintain constitutional order”.

The allegations are heavy, and they are allegations. A coalition of more than 40 African groups alleged that over 3,000 people were killed and demanded she step down and face prosecution; the article could not verify the figures and carried no government reply. Lissu was charged with treason in April 2025, and his lawyer called the charges politically driven. In 2024, after the reported abduction and killing of a Chadema official, she told her party's women's wing she “never killed anyone”.

On the harm check, the record is thinner than you might expect. Mamba reported in 2023 that she described LGBTQ+ rights as “imported cultures”, while MPs pushed for harsher penalties, including execution; those calls were theirs, not hers. We couldn't confirm her full wording, so the call is a close one. The bigger harm question is what her government did to dissent and protesters.

The good stuff is real. The schoolgirl reversal came after the World Bank froze a $300 million loan for girls' education over the ban, and it won praise from groups that had campaigned against it. In 2024 female MPs and a gas company honoured her for championing clean cooking energy, which is a women's health and climate issue. That's an award from friendly hands, so weigh it accordingly.

So where does that leave us? She has done things a LGBTQ+-friendly, girl-friendly, planet-friendly household can applaud. But a disputed vote, a shutdown, mass treason charges and an inquiry that named no one add up to a hard pass on the easy cheer. It's a mixed result on both tests, and a 3 reflects that.