The main opposition leader of Tanzania, Tundu Lissu, has been found guilty of incitement in the proceedings opened after his arrest in April 2025, although the court has acquitted him of the crime of "treason", for which he could have faced the death penalty.
In its ruling, the judicial body responsible for the case concluded that the Prosecution did not provide sufficient evidence to support the charge of treason against Lissu, 58, and leader of the Party for Democracy and Development (Chadema, by its acronym in Swahili). For this reason, it has acquitted him of that charge by finding that it was not established that he tried to intimidate the authorities with his public statements.
However, the court has found that his interventions at campaign events constituted an offense of "incitement", after he called for preventing or altering the holding of the 2025 general elections by arguing that they would be tainted by fraud, according to the Tanzanian newspaper 'The Citizen'.
Chadema has been denouncing for years a campaign of harassment by the Tanzanian Government, which it holds responsible for arbitrary disqualifications and for ordering the security forces to carry out violent repression against its supporters and candidates for public office. In this context, the party frames the proceedings against Lissu, who in this case was facing the risk of a death sentence.
The opposition figure, a lawyer by profession and who has defended himself during the oral hearing, has maintained his innocence at all times. He has stated that his statements were part of a political campaign in favor of a constitutional and electoral reform, and he added that they were taken out of context in order to be able to charge him.
Lissu is one of the most recognizable figures in Tanzanian opposition and was a candidate in the 2020 presidential elections, in which he finished second behind the then president, John Magufuli. After surviving an assassination attempt in 2017, he went into exile and later returned to the African country to take part in those elections.
At that electoral contest, Magufuli obtained close to 83% of the votes --compared with 12.8% for Lissu-- and the ruling party won 99% of the ballots, which led the opposition figure to denounce massive fraud and leave the country again, alleging that he was receiving death threats that put his integrity at risk.
Magufuli died in March 2021 and was replaced by his then vice president, Samia Suluhu Hassan, who announced a process of dialogue with the opposition. This gesture encouraged Lissu to return to Tanzania and try to set in motion a new presidential candidacy, an initiative that was cut short after his detention last year, a few months before the elections.
Suluhu Hassan, of the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi Party (CCM, by its acronym in Swahili), then prevailed at the polls --and was elected for the first time through popular vote-- with more than 97.6% of the support, after Chadema was disqualified and after Luhana Mpina withdrew his candidacy, an aspirant of the also opposition Alliance for Change and Transparency (ACT-Wazalendo).
The elections triggered a wave of protests that was harshly suppressed by security forces. According to an investigation by a Tanzanian commission, the incidents left at least 500 dead, although the opposition said that the actual toll was far higher, in a climate of repeated alarm raised by several non-governmental organizations.