Mwinyi dies at 98

President Samia Suluhu Hassan announced the sad news in a brief televised address at State House in the commercial capital, declaring seven days of national mourning starting today.

She said that flags across the country will fly at half-mast across the mourning period, with the burial lined up for tomorrow in Zanzibar.

“With great sadness, I hereby announce the passing of former President Ali Hassan Mwinyi, who died this evening at Mzena Hospital in Dar es Salaam where he was undergoing treatment of lung cancer,” the president, visibly grief-stricken said.

She said the former president had been undergoing treatment since November last year when he was flown to a London hospital and later readmitted to Mzena Hospital.

Born on May 8, 1925 at Kivure village, Coast Region, on Tanzania Mainland and raised in Zanzibar, Mwinyi served as the second President of the United Republic of Tanzania from November 5, 1985 to November 23, 1995.

He had earlier served as third President of Zanzibar – from January 30, 1984 to October 24, 1985.

He had his primary and secondary education at Mangapwani and Dole Secondary School in Zanzibar, respectively, from 1933 to 1942 and thereafter attended a two-year teaching course at the Zanzibar Teachers’ Training College.

He pursued further professional training at the University of Durham, near Newcastle city, in north east England, thus setting for a professional career in teaching.

He became principal of the Zanzibar Teachers’ Training College and was soon thereafter recruited into public administration in 1963 as principal secretary in Zanzibar’s Ministry of Education.

From 1970 to 1975 he served as Minister of State in the Union President’s Office, Health minister and Home Affairs minister, whereupon he resigned over an administrative mishap in a remand prison, and thereafter served Tanzania’s Ambassador to Egypt up to 1977.

He was then recalled as Natural Resources and Tourism minister and later became Minister of State in the Vice President’s Office, making him a major link in the Union government’s handling of Zanzibar issues.

After a disturbance during the 20th Zanzibar Revolution anniversary – on January 20, 1984 – the central committee of the ruling CCM replaced the then Zanzibar President, Sheikh Aboud Jumbe Mwinyi with Ali Hassan Mwinyi, right up to the country’s 1985 General Election when the party nominated him as its contender for the ‘yes’ and ‘no’ vote for the Union presidency. He triumphed, serving as Tanzania’s president for a full two successive five-year terms as provided for under the country’s Constitution.