Good morning! The Chanzo is here with a rundown of major news stories reported in Tanzania on October 20, 2025.
CCM Presidential Candidate Samia Suluhu Hassan Tasks Cell Leaders to Ensure Voter Turnout on October 29
CCM presidential candidate and President of the United Republic of Tanzania, Samia Suluhu Hassan, has urged CCM cell leaders and supporters across the country to take personal responsibility for ensuring that all registered voters turn out to vote on October 29, 2025.
Speaking at a campaign rally in Mkuranga District, Pwani Region, President Samia called on cell leaders and families to play an active role in mobilizing voters, stressing that high voter participation is key to realizing the goals outlined in the party’s election manifesto.
“To effectively implement what is contained in our CCM election manifesto, we must first vote in large numbers. Cell leaders, family members—make sure everyone who is registered goes out to vote,” she said.
Her message, delivered to a cheering crowd, echoes similar calls she has made during campaign stops across the country since the launch of her campaign on August 28, 2025. The CCM candidate has consistently emphasized the importance of civic responsibility and party unity as the nation heads toward the general election.
Cell leaders have long served as a key instrument of CCM’s political influence since the one-party era. They represent the lowest level of the party’s organizational structure and are ideally responsible for communicating CCM policies to the grassroots and channeling feedback from citizens up through the party hierarchy.
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Tundu Lissu’s Treason Trial Hangs in the Balance as Judges Set to Rule on Critical Evidence
The treason trial of CHADEMA national chairperson Tundu Lissu reached a fever pitch on Monday, culminating in a blistering legal duel over the admissibility of the state’s key video evidence.
After hours of intense arguments, the three-judge bench postponed a potentially case-defining ruling, leaving the prosecution’s fate uncertain until Wednesday.
The session was dedicated entirely to the prosecution’s response to Mr Lissu’s multi-faceted objection against the admission of a flash drive and memory card containing videos of his speeches.
The state’s attempt to rebut the challenge was met with a powerful rejoinder from Lissu, who accused the prosecutors of presenting falsehoods and operating outside the law.
Led by State Attorney Nassor Katuga, the prosecution team launched its defence of the evidence. In a direct rebuttal to Lissu’s first objection, Katuga vehemently insisted that the videos were indeed played and read aloud in the Committal Court at Kisutu.
He invited the judges to examine the court’s records, specifically pages 92 and 93 of the proceedings, which he claimed documented this fact.
“Somebody defending themselves can lie, but the court can prove the same through court proceedings,” Katuga stated. He argued that court records are “serious documents” that cannot be easily impeached and asked the judges to dismiss this ground of objection as “baseless.”
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Op-Ed: The Uproar Over AI is an Elitist Panic at the Threat of Our True Liberation
The controversy surrounding the capabilities of generative artificial intelligence is not a new phenomenon, but rather the latest manifestation of a historical pattern: an elitist panic at the prospect of true freedom for all. My first encounter with this resistance was not in a book, but in a Tanzanian newsroom in 2017.
A free, AI-powered tool, Grammarly, which was launched in 2009, could significantly improve the quality of our work and ease the burden on our overworked editors, yet it was met with reluctance and suspicion by many colleagues. They were, I believe, victims of a pervasive propaganda that dismisses any innovation that threatens to democratise privileges historically reserved for a select few.
This is the crux of the matter. The problem is not Large Language Models (LLMs) in themselves. As technologies, they are inert. The problem lies in the social and economic relations under which they are being developed and deployed.
When the primary motive is profit for capital owners, and the goal is to serve the interests of a few rather than the needs of the many, then any technology, no matter how revolutionary, risks becoming a tool of oppression rather than liberation. Our critique, therefore, should not be aimed at the technology itself, but at the social structures that determine its use.
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