Dar es Salaam, Tanzania – As thousands of supporters marched through Dar-es-Salaam on Wednesday carrying placards with their demands, the deputy leader of the opposition Chadema party, Tunde Lissu, told reporters that the rallies were the start of a mission to get a new constitution and the To make the electoral commission truly independent.

They were considered the largest public demonstrations since President Samia Suluhu Hassan lifted the ban a year ago and served as a platform for the opposition to challenge a series of controversial electoral reforms set to be debated in parliament next month.

“We have been demanding these constitutional reforms for 30 years, now we will demand them in the streets,” said Lissu. “If it is not possible to get a new constitution through dialogue, it will be enforced on the streets.”

But while the rallies were seen as successful by spectators, the big question in Tanzanian politics is how far the government will go to meet Chadema’s demands.

Since taking office in March 2021 with the stated aim of implementing democratic reforms, Hassan has kept observers guessing about what her next move would be.

Her predecessor, John Magufuli, was different: he was called “the bulldozer” because of his dictatorial tendencies and ruled ruthlessly.

He has muzzled the media and banned rallies and public gatherings, forcing opposition politicians like Lissu into exile and others into hiding. Between 2015, when he came to power, and 2021, when he died in office, Magufuli also avoided the West and was a known COVID-19 denier and vaccine skeptic.

Hassan lifted the ban on rallies and public gatherings in 2023, paving the way for Lissu to return from exile. It also welcomed back members of the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi who had been expelled from the party.

But during her time in office there were also allegations of suppression of dissent: Chadema leader Freeman Mbowe was subsequently jailed for seven months on “terrorism” charges be arrested during a nighttime police raid a day before the party was scheduled to hold a constitutional reform forum.

Dissent and determination

Even on the eve of the rallies there was uncertainty as to whether they would even take place.

When Chadema announced plans for the rallies two weeks ago, Dar es Salaam’s regional commissioner said government officials and the army would hold a sanitation exercise in the city’s streets on the same day. The official’s statement was quickly interpreted as aimed at preventing the rallies.

Police also issued a statement threatening to intervene if the rallies were not peaceful. But some analysts say Chadema is determined to carry on, regardless of the challenges security agencies pose.

“I don’t think we give them enough credit for putting not only their money but also their bodies where their mouth is,” said columnist and commentator Elsie Eyakuze. The authorities’ decision to allow the rallies to take place was part of the healing process after the Magufuli era in which there was no room for dissent, she added.

Human rights activist and political commentator Baruani Mshale agreed, saying Chadema deserved credit for his courage in holding the rallies, and not Hassan and her government for not blocking them.

“I felt the determination from Chadema’s side that they will hold the rallies under any circumstances. The only surprising thing was the cooperation that the police gave them,” he told Al Jazeera.

A season full of demands

Thirty years ago, when Tanzania decided to move from one-party rule to multi-party democracy, calls began for an amendment to the existing 1977 constitution.

They resurfaced after Magufuli’s election in 2015, as opposition supporters complained and claimed the vote had been rigged by the state machinery in collaboration with the ruling party.

The government has proposed changing the composition of the committee that selects commissioners for the electoral body and making the appointment of the chairman and deputy chairman of the electoral commission by the president.

But opponents of the bill say the decisions of the president, who is also the leader of the ruling party, should be reviewed by an independent committee.

They also want the scope of the bill, which currently focuses on presidential elections, parliamentary elections and municipal board elections, to be expanded to include elections for heads of streets, villages and hamlets, which are currently administered by the Ministry of Regional and Local Government rather than the Election Commission .

Chadema in particular goes one step further and calls for the draft laws to be rewritten.

“When you look at the extent of the weaknesses in these bills, it becomes clear that… the only way to fix these bills is to withdraw them from Parliament and redraft them, following the 1977 constitutional amendment “said John Mnyika of the party’s general secretary after presenting an analysis to the parliamentary committee.

The party also has other demands, including reinstating a bill for a new constitution, regardless of what happens in parliament next month.

For many Tanzanians, there remains some uncertainty about the reasons the government will give in ahead of the 2026 elections, especially as the opposition’s talks with the ruling party have failed to produce the desired results for more than a year.

And that could lead to Tanzania entering a period of sustained protests, experts say.

“The fact that most of their recommendations were ignored shows that all these talks and well-meaning promises from Samia are meaningless,” said Thabit Jacob, a political commentator and postdoctoral researcher at Lund University, Sweden. “The rallies give them an opportunity to talk about the urgency of the situation, as backroom talks have proven ineffective.”

Some believe the president needs more time to deliver, arguing that she represents the progressive element of the ruling party and a different order than her predecessors. And there is increasing talk that the opposition needs to moderate its demands as a compromise between the two sides appears unlikely in the coming months.

“Let us be politically mature,” Eyakuze said. “It is very easy to destroy a system overnight, but building a democracy takes time. Chadema has been against it for three presidents and suddenly we have a march and a boom and we are going to change the constitution. Which planet?”