There were few voters at polling stations in Tanzania’s biggest city on Wednesday as the main challengers to President Samia Suluhu Hassan were either jailed or barred from running, AFP reports.

The government and police made repeated threats that protests would not be tolerated, and stationed tanks around the commercial capital Dar es Salaam on Wednesday to prevent any unrest. But the heightened security may have backfired with voters worried about showing up.

Polling stations in some of the city’s busiest areas were virtually empty an hour after opening, journalists saw, despite being busy at that time during previous elections.

“We are going to mobilise people from the streets and their homes to come and vote,” an official from the ruling Revolution Party (Chama Cha Mapinduzi – CCM) in Temeke district of Dar es Salaam said on condition of anonymity.

“We need to rescue the situation because some are hesitating,” the official added.

A food vendor, who gave only her first name Saada, 40, said she was too scared to vote.

“I could not go out today because of fear of violence,” she said.

Amnesty International has denounced a “wave of terror” ahead of the election including “enforced disappearance and torture… and extrajudicial killings of opposition figures and activists”.

President Hassan, 65, is determined to cement her position with an emphatic victory that will silence critics within her own party, analysts say. Her main challenger, Tundu Lissu, is on trial for treason, facing a potential death penalty. His party, Chadema, is barred from running.

The only other serious candidate, Luhaga Mpina of ACT-Wazalendo, was disqualified on technicalities.

Hassan was elevated from vice-president in 2021 on the death of her iron-fisted predecessor, John Magufuli, but faced opposition as the country’s first female leader.

Human Rights Watch said, “the authorities have suppressed the political opposition and critics of the ruling party, stifled the media, and failed to ensure the electoral commission’s independence”. There are fears that even members of the ruling party are being targeted.

Humphrey Polepole, a former CCM spokesman and ambassador to Cuba, went missing from his home this month after resigning and criticising Hassan. His family found blood stains in his home.

The Tanganyika Law Society says it has confirmed 83 abductions since Hassan came to power, with another 20 reported in recent weeks.

In Zanzibar, where analysts expect a tighter race due to the island’s greater degree of freedom, polling was incident-free. But most foreign journalists have been effectively barred from travelling to the mainland to observe the vote there.

Hassan has done nothing to remove the “thugs” with which Magufuli stacked the intelligence service, said an analyst in the country’s economic hub of Dar es Salaam, requesting anonymity for fear of reprisals. They are laser-focused on any sign of internal dissent and throttled the opposition ahead of the last election in 2020.

“We thought Magufuli was a blip and the 2020 elections were an abnormality. My worry is that this is the new normal,” the analyst said.

Protests are rare in Tanzania in part thanks to a relatively healthy economy, which grew by 5.5 per cent last year according to the World Bank, on the back of strong agriculture, tourism and mining sectors.

Hassan has promised big infrastructure projects and universal health insurance in a bid to win over voters. But police said they arrested 17 people this weekend in the north-western Kagera region who were planning unrest on Election Day.

“I want to assure citizens that there will be no security threat on polling day,” said Hassan at a recent election rally.

“We are well-prepared for security. Those who have failed to participate in the competition should not seek to disrupt our election.”

From Mainland Tanzania, The Associated Press reports that polling stations “across Tanzania opened on Wednesday for an election marked by concerns from human rights organisations and the detention of opposition members.”

The reports said queues formed at three polling stations visited by its journalists. Voting officially began at 7:00am local time and is scheduled to close at 4:00pm, after which vote tallying will begin. However, some polling stations in Dar s Saaalm were empty hours after stations were opened.

Preliminary results are expected within 24 hours, but the electoral commission has up to seven days to announce the final outcome.

The leader of the main opposition CHADEMA party, Tundu Lissu, is in prison and faces treason charges after calling for electoral reforms while the second largest opposition party’s candidate was barred from running.

Amnesty International said the atmosphere around the polls was characterised by fear, saying it had verified cases of enforced disappearances, arbitrary arrests and extrajudicial killings ahead of the polls. The rights group said alleged abuses by the security forces undermine the legitimacy of the election.

Hassan seeks her first full term in office after completing the term of her predecessor, John Pombe Magufuli, who died suddenly in 2021. Sixteen opposition candidates representing smaller parties are also on the ballot.

Tanzania has more than 37 million registered voters, a 26 per cent increase from 2020, but that growth in voter registration is not likely to lead to more people going to voting booths, analysts warn, citing apathy over the appearance that Hassan will cruise to victory unchallenged.

CHADEMA has called for protests on Election Day.

• A Tell Media report