Tanzania’s president, Samia Suluhu Hassan, has been declared the winner of the country’s disputed election with more than 97% of the vote following violent protests across the country earlier in the week.

The landslide result announced by Tanzania’s electoral commission hands Hassan, who took power in 2021 after the death in office of her predecessor, a five-year term to govern the east African country of 68 million people.

At stake for the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) party was its decades-long grip on power amid the rise of charismatic opposition figures who hoped to lead the country toward political change.

Still, a landslide victory is unheard of in the region. Only Paul Kagame, the authoritarian leader of Rwanda, regularly wins by a landslide.

Rights groups including Amnesty International cited a pattern of enforced disappearances, arbitrary arrests and extrajudicial killings in Tanzania ahead of the polls.

In June, a United Nations panel of human rights experts cited more than 200 cases of enforced disappearance since 2019, saying they were “alarmed by reports of a pattern of repression” ahead of elections.

Protests erupted during Wednesday’s vote for president and parliament, with some demonstrators tearing down banners of Hassan and setting fire to government buildings and police firing teargas and gunshots, according to witnesses.

Demonstrators were angry about the electoral commission’s exclusion of Hassan’s two biggest challengers from the race and what they described as widespread repression.

In April, Tundu Lissu, the vice-chair of the main opposition party, Chadema, was arrested and charged with treason and cybercrime offences. His party, which had led calls for a boycott of the election unless electoral systems were reformed, was later disqualified from participating.

Last month, Luhaga Mpina, the leader of ACT-Wazalendo, another opposition party, was also disqualified, meaning Hassan contested only lesser-known opponents from minor parties.

Government critics were also abducted and arrested in the run-up to the election.

Tanzania’s main opposition party said on Friday hundreds of people had been killed in the protests, while the UN human rights office said credible reports indicated at least 10 people were killed in three cities.

The government dismissed the opposition’s death toll as “hugely exaggerated” and has rejected criticisms of its human rights record.

With Reuters and Associated Press