Tanzania: reform-washing autocracy

President Hassan has been celebrated as a democratic reformer, but her goal increasingly appears to be to deliver not reform, but the performance of reform. Sustaining that performance, while forestalling reform, is her new strategy of regime survival. So far, it has delivered. Hassan has won widespread approbation, and dampened criticism. She has done so by using promise, process, and delay to hold her true motivations in suspense, and by adopting a ‘good governance’ style which contrasts with Magufuli’s own. However, beneath that performance, repression has persisted, and electoral manipulation has returned. Hassan no longer deserves the benefit of doubt.