Tanzanian opposition leader Tundu Lissu was charged with treason on Thursday and remanded in custody indefinitely.
The move means that the leader of the Chadema party could remain behind bars beyond the parliamentary elections scheduled for October or November.
Lissu, the chairman of the country's most prominent opposition party CHADEMA, was arraigned in a Dar es Salaam court late afternoon on Thursday after being arrested in the southern Ruvuma region the previous evening.
Tanzanian opposition leader and former presidential candidate of CHADEMA party Tundu Lissu sits inside the Kisutu Resident Magistrate's Court in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania April 10, 2025.
Photo credit: Reuters
He has been spearheading a crusade by the party to have the election postponed pending proper electoral reforms to ensure fair play.
Treason is a non-bailable offence in Tanzania, and punishable by death if found guilty. According to the charge sheet read out to Lissu at the Kisutu resident magistrate's court in Dar es Salaam, he is basically accused of plotting to block the election unlawfully.
The charge sheet stated: "On April 3, 2025, Tundu Antipas Lissu did form an intention to instigate the public to effect an obstruction of Tanzania's 2025 general election, and manifested such intention by intimidating the executive of the United Republic by uttering and publishing the following words:
"Walisema msimamo huu unaashiria uasi, ni kweli, kwa sababu tunasema tutazuia uchaguzi, tutahamasisha uasi, hiyo ndiyo namna ya kupata mabadiliko. Kwa hiyo tunaenda kukinukisha vibaya sana, huu uchaguzi tutauvuruga kweli kweli." (They said our stance amounts to rebellion, that is true because we oppose elections. We will spread our defiance, that is how you get change. For that, we will disrupt the elections for sure.)
Tanzanian opposition leader and former presidential candidate of CHADEMA party Tundu Lissu sits inside the Kisutu Resident Magistrate's Court in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania April 10, 2025.
Photo credit: Reuters
This was a direct reference to Lissu's remarks on Thursday last week when he met with CHADEMA members who have shown an interest to run for parliamentary seats this year but were confused by the party's stance on no election without reforms.
In that meeting, he gave them the go-ahead to try their luck in the election, but advised them that it would "better to just forget it because as a party we are going to mess this election up real bad if we don't get the reforms that we want."
Lissu was arrested by police on Wednesday immediately after addressing a public rally in Mbinga, Ruvuma region, the latest stop in a nationwide CHADEMA tour to sell its "No Reforms No Election" agenda to the electorate.
Police also deployed teargas and rubber bullets to disperse the large crowd which had turned up for the occasion and witnessed the arrest.
The rallies have so far covered the country's southern regions, drawing significant public attendances, although the general response to the campaign message remains difficult to gauge.
Tanzanian opposition leader and former presidential candidate of CHADEMA party Tundu Lissu sits inside the Kisutu Resident Magistrate's Court in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania April 10, 2025.
Photo credit: Reuters
However, political observers are already warning that charging Lissu with such a serious offence as treason in the prevailing circumstances may end up raising more concerns among Tanzanians about the country's democratic trajectory ahead of the election
"Someone in government or (the ruling party) CCM should be advising them to beware of the law of unintended consequences," said one pundit who preferred anonymity.
The court session on Thursday was attended by a large crowd comprising mostly Lissu's supporters, after word got out earlier in the day about his pending arraignment.
His address to unsettled party members last Thursday also included a strong reminder of last year's local governments elections where official results gave candidates from the ruling CCM party more than 99 percent of the grassroots level seats at stake amid widespread claims of electoral fraud.
"After going through that experience, any CHADEMA member who hopes to win in the same circumstances is not serious." Lissu said. "We will just be slaughtered again, and that's why we are pushing for reforms across the entire system of conducting the elections to prevent a repeat of that kind of farce."
