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Tienen (Belgium) (AFP)
Last month, Tundu Lissu was campaigning for the presidency of Tanzania.
Today he is back in a simple ground floor apartment in the small Belgian town where he recovered from multiple gunshot wounds the last time he was forced to flee his homeland.
It is dangerous to be the flagship of the opposition in Tanzania, where President John Magufuli returned to office on 28 October with an unlikely 84 percent of the vote.
But 52-year-old Lissu, a veteran of brutal East African state politics, knew the risks and wears the physical and mental scars to prove it.
In September 2017 gunmen opened fire on him outside his home in a protected government complex, apparently after stalking the then opposition MP.
Lissu was left with 16 gunshot wounds but survived and was taken away, first to Nairobi and then to Belgium, where his life was saved with several rounds of surgery.
He returned to Tanzania in July after being chosen to lead the opposition’s challenge to Magufuli’s re-election.
The campaign went well despite the government’s oppressive tactics, he said, but the president’s landslide victory came as no surprise.
Lissu, who met AFP in his apartment in exile in the anonymous city of Tienen in Flemish Brabant, had been warned that the election would be rigged.
Before the vote, he said, a person who identified himself as a senior military official contacted him.
“This army general told me, ‘Magufuli will get 12 million votes, you will get three. That’s what they decided,'” Lissu said.
“And you know what? That’s exactly what Magufuli got – 12.5 million. I didn’t get three million. I got 1.9,” he said.
– Rigged card –
The US State Department has expressed concern over reports of “significant and widespread voting irregularities, Internet outages, arrests and violence by security forces.”
The UK Foreign Office also complained of allegations of “ballot boxes being filled in and party agents being denied entry to polling stations”.
What happened next wasn’t unexpected either, but it was still terrifying, especially for the survivor of a previous assassination attempt.
“Immediately after the call for an election, or what passes for an election, the security details that I was given during the campaign were removed,” he said.
“And just the next day, I started getting death threats,” said Lissu, who still walks with a limp.
The caller did not identify himself by name, but it seemed clear that he represented the security or intelligence services.
Lissu escaped from his home.
“I was shocked. I was scared. Getting hit is the most terrible thing you can imagine. I remember the sheer sound of explosions when I was under attack,” he said.
“And the pain and basically the destruction of your body is horrible,” he said. “Remembering those hours was a very bad thing. I was shaking. I ran.”
– Will to resist –
At first he stayed with his friends, but fearing to put them in danger, he decided to leave for the German embassy in Dar es Salaam.
He was arrested while seeking refuge, but German diplomats followed him to the detention center and eventually managed to free him.
On Tuesday he was able to return to Belgium, catch up with his wife Alicia and plan his next move.
Magufuli swept away international criticism of the vote and crushed the opposition’s attempts to organize post-election protests.
“The purpose of freedom and democracy is to promote development, not chaos,” the president said Friday as he returned to a parliament now filled with ruling party members.
“Freedom, rights and democracy go with responsibility – and everyone has limits. I hope I am well understood,” Magufuli warned.
Lissu, however, has not given up on his hopes for democracy, backed by what he said was the widespread support he encountered during the election campaign.
“I’ll be back. I don’t know when, but I can’t stay in Europe forever. The most important thing right now is to continue the fight,” he told AFP.
“The international community needs to know about Tanzania, they need to know that an autocratic regime has taken over,” he said.
“I have a message for my people, the people of Tanzania,” he continued.
“What the campaign over the past three months has shown is that our people have not been broken, that our people’s will to resist and fight for democracy has not been broken.”
© 2020 AFP
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