Tanzania President John Magufuli Dies at 61
Posted on 03/18/2021
John Pombe Magufuli became the President of Tanzania in 2015. He died at the age of 61 from heart complications at a hospital in Dar es Salaam on March 17, 2020. Magufuli had not been seen in public for more than two weeks. The opposition party said he was being treated for COVID.
Magufuli was the son of a peasant farmer. First elected as a Member of Parliament in 1995, he served in the Cabinet of Tanzania as Deputy Minister of Works from 1995 to 2000, Minister of Works from 2000 to 2006, Minister of Lands and Human Settlement from 2006 to 2008, Minister of Livestock and Fisheries from 2008 to 2010, and as Minister of Works for a second time from 2010 to 2015.
Vice-President Samia Suluhu Hassan will be sworn in as the new president and should serve the remainder of Magufuli’s five-year team which he began in 2020.