Samia Suluhu Hassan with effect from Thursday become the Tanzania’s new president, following the death of President John Magufuli on Wednesday.
She will be making history, as the first woman to be president in Tanzania and in east Africa.
Hassan, now 61, had also made history, when she became the first female vice-president in 2015.
She will complete Magufuli’s five-year second term, which he began in November 2020.
President Hassan was born in the semi-autonomous archipelago of Zanzibar on 27 January, 1960.
And she now makes another record as the first Tanzanian president from Zanzibar.
After completing her secondary education in 1977, she got married in 1978 and now has four children, one of whom is a parliamentarian in Zanzibar.
Her first job was when she was employed by the Ministry of Planning and Development as a clerk.
According to a profile published in Wikipedia, she pursued a number of short-courses on a part-time basis.
In 1986, she graduated from the Institute of Development Management (present-day Mzumbe University) with an advanced diploma in public administration.
Upon graduation, she was employed on a project funded by the World Food Programme.
Between 1992 and 1994, she attended the University of Manchester and graduated with a postgraduate diploma in economics.
In 2015, she obtained her MSc in Community Economic Development via a joint-programme between the Open University of Tanzania and the Southern New Hampshire University.
In 2000, she decided to join politics. She was elected as a special seat member to the Zanzibar House of Representatives and was appointed a minister by President Amani Karume.
She was the only high-ranking woman minister in the cabinet and was “looked down on” by her male colleagues because of her gender.
She was re-elected in 2005 and was re-appointed as a minister in another portfolio.
In 2010, she sought election to the National Assembly, standing in the parliamentary constituency of Makunduchi and winning by more than 80%.
President Jakaya Kikwete appointed her as the Minister of State for Union Affairs.
In 2014, she was elected as the Vice Chairperson of the Constituent Assembly tasked with drafting the country’s new constitution.
