US Vice President Kamala Harris congratulated Tanzania’s new president Samia Suluhu Hassan, the first woman to hold that office, and said the United States was ready to strengthen ties between the two countries.
Ms Harris, the first woman and first person of colour to serve as US vice president, made the comment in a posting on Twitter.
"Sending best wishes to @SuluhuSamia following her swearing in as Tanzania’s new president - the first woman to hold the office. The United States stands ready to work with you to strengthen relations between our countries," she wrote.
Ms Hassan, who had been vice president since 2015, on Friday urged the country to unite here and avoid pointing fingers after the death of John Magufuli, her COVID-19 sceptic predecessor.
The US Trade Representative’s office is leading US efforts to forge a new trade and investment partnership with the East African Community, a regional organization that includes Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda.
Total trade between the two countries was $462 million in 2019. US foreign direct investment (FDI) in Tanzania was $1.5 billion in 2019, a 5.2 per cent increase from 2018, according to US government data.
Mr Magufuli was one of a handful of world leaders, alongside former US president Donald Trump and Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro, who scoffed at Covid-19. He even went so far as to deny its presence in the country.
He had declared that prayer had rid the country of Covid-19, refused face masks or lockdown measures, stopped the publication of case statistics and championed alternative medicine, decrying vaccines as "dangerous".
But by February, cases had soared. After the deaths of a number of senior figures - officially from respiratory problems and pneumonia - the president popularly known as the "Bulldozer" had to concede that the virus was still circulating.
While Hassan says she will take over where Mr Magufuli left off, hopes are high she will usher in a change in leadership style from her predecessor, under whose rule there had been a sharp crackdown on the opposition, media, and civil society.
All eyes will be on her handling of the pandemic.
A softly spoken veteran politician, Ms Hassan convened a special meeting of the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi party Saturday but it concluded without news of appointing a new deputy.
Under the constitution, the 61-year-old will serve the remainder of Mr Magufuli's second five-year term, which does not expire until 2025.
She has announced a 21-day mourning period. The late president will lie in state in several locations across Tanzania before his burial next Friday in his home town of Chato.
Additional reporting: AFP
