Tanzania’s Vice President Samia Suluhu Hassan is expected to replace late President John Magufuli on Thursday. She announced Magufuli’s death on Wednesday, according to a BBC report.
Hassan, 61, was Magufuli’s board member in 2015. She was re-elected last year and will serve the country for the rest of the five-year period.
With the expected takeover, she will become Africa’s only current female president – apart from the Ethiopian presidency, which is a largely ceremonial role – and join a small group of women on the continent who play an administrative role.
She is known as Mama Samia, which reflects respect for leaders in Tanzanian culture.
Hassan’s leading role in 2015 came as a surprise to many, given that she skipped several other prominent politicians in the Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) party, which has been in power several times since independence in 1961.
First elected to a public office in 2000, she made a national appearance in 2014 as Vice President of the Constituent Assembly, created to draft a new constitution.
When it comes to personality, she strikes a contrast with Magufuli. Where he seemed impulsive, not afraid to speak from the cuff and let his feelings be known, she is more caring and caring.
A Member of Parliament, Jan Makamba, who worked with her in the Vice President’s office, has called her “the most underrated politician in Tanzania.”
“I have closely observed her work ethic, decision-making and temperament. She is a very capable leader,” he told the BBC.
One of the crucial issues she needs to address is the method of dealing with the COVID-19 crisis. She must decide to continue her predecessor’s skeptical attitude towards coronavirus.
She was loyal to the late president but was not afraid to act on her own.
Although he has been vice chairman since 2015 and after serving as prime minister in the previous government, little is known about Hassan’s privacy.
She was born in January 1960 on Zanzibar – the semi-autonomous islands off the mainland coast of Tanzania. Later, she continued to study public administration, first in Tanzania and then a doctorate at Britain’s Manchester University.
She married Hafidh Ameir, who is known for being an agricultural academy, in 1978. The two have not been pictured together, as Hassan is vice president and her husband has a relatively low profile.
They have four children. Her daughter Mwanu Hafidh Ameir currently serves as a member of Zanzibar’s House of Representatives.
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