Intelligence Analysis | Why Paul Kagame Hasn't Congratulated Samia Suluhu After Tanzania's Disputed October 2025 Election 🇷🇼🇹🇿
Ujasusi Blog’s Great Lakes Region Monitoring Team | 12 November 2025 | 0250 GMT
Executive Summary
President Paul Kagame’s failure to congratulate President Samia Suluhu Hassan following Tanzania’s October 29, 2025 general elections represents a significant diplomatic anomaly—particularly given Samia’s surprising early outreach to Rwanda in August 2021, just months after assuming office. This intelligence insight examines why an initially promising bilateral relationship has deteriorated to the point where Kagame now joins an exclusive club of regional leaders withholding congratulations. The analysis reveals how structural geopolitical tensions over the Democratic Republic of Congo, the M23 rebellion, and regional power competition have overridden personal diplomatic gestures, marking a return to the hostility that characterised the Kikwete-Kagame years (2013-2015).
📋 The Diplomatic Anomaly: Who Congratulated and Who Didn’t
Following Tanzania’s election, the congratulatory pattern reveals significant diplomatic fault lines:
Leaders Who Congratulated Samia:
Kenya’s President William Ruto – Within 24 hours
Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni – October 30, 2025
Burundi’s President Évariste Ndayishimiye – October 30, 2025
DRC’s President Félix Tshisekedi – Described her victory as “brilliant re-election”
Somalia’s President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud – Extended warm congratulations
South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir – Issued official statement
Leaders Who Did Not Congratulate:
Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame – No message after 14+ days
Kagame’s silence is exceptional not only because it violates standard EAC diplomatic protocol, but because it contradicts the trajectory established by Samia’s early diplomatic overture to Rwanda—a gesture that defied predictions of renewed Kikwete-era hostility.