Paper short abstract:

In 2015, John Magufuli became the President of Tanzania. His rule, essentially exhibited populism marked by a strong personalist leadership style, decisionism, anti-elite, anti-political, and anti-foreign finance capital. The outcome of his populism was power centralization and authoritarianism.

Paper long abstract:

In 2015, John Magufuli became the fifth President of the United Republic of Tanzania. Like many other populists, his rule, which ended in 2021 following his sudden death, essentially exhibited a strong personalist leadership style, decisionism, anti-party, anti-elite, anti-establishment, anti-political, anti-foreign finance capital, and big corporations. Magufuli presented himself as "a man of the people,” especially those with low incomes. The outcome of his populism was power centralization and authoritarianism. The democratic project was brought to a standstill, marked by shrinking political space through undermining media, restricting freedom of speech and assembly, banning political parties' rallies, and constraining civil society. In the 2020 elections, the share of popular votes by the Magufuli's regime reached a climax after obtaining 84 per cent of the popular votes and 96 per cent of parliamentary seats. The Freedom in the World 2022 Report while recording the backsliding of democracy worldwide for seventeen years consecutively, it ranks Tanzania as a partly free society in which civil liberties and political rights are constrained. This paper aims to systematically examine the Magufuli's populist strategies and how they aided democratic backsliding.