A few days after President Samia Suluhu lifted the ban on political rallies in Tanzania that her late predecessor placed in 2016, oppositional leaders around the country have praised the move, calling it the restoration of Tanzania’s democracy.

Chadema’s oppositional leader and the former Tarime MP, John Heche, has praised President Samia’s historic decision and called for more changes.  Heche made those remarks on Twitter Space held on January 4, 2023.

“It is indeed a good beginning, but we must push for more reforms to get the new constitution,” Heche said.

Heche then said that he is overwhelmed and shocked after seeing the same people who celebrated the banning of public rallies in 2016 are the same people today praising President Samia after lifting the ban on political rallies.

“Since 1992, we were free to hold public rallies, we have that experience. We asked them to show us where we could have gone wrong to ban them, but they couldn’t,” – Heche added while questioning legal grounds for banning political rallies.

Heche said there were no legal grounds to crackdown on political rallies, this was all due to problems our constitution has, and there’s is a great need for change. Heche added.