The Witch’s Pact Will Not Last: Shadow Alliances Behind Abductions in Tanzania and the Trump–Musk Parallel

From Power to Paranoia: As the Trump–Musk alliance crumbles under ego and fallout, a symbolic cartoon figure representing Tanzania’s feared “unknown assailants” looms large—clad in a half-police, half-party shirt and wielding a club, echoing the covert violence carried out in the shadows of state power.

Of Power, Fear, and Falling Out

At the height of their synergy, the alliance between Donald Trump and Elon Musk was portrayed as revolutionary—an engine of disruption for what they branded as an inefficient, bloated government. But beneath the polished rhetoric of “efficiency” and “innovation,” the Trump–Musk alliance laid waste to institutions, livelihoods, and lives. Entire departments were gutted, anti-DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) crusades escalated, and critical foreign aid was suspended—leaving millions in the Global South in despair. Then, spectacularly, the alliance collapsed in a public fallout filled with ego, recriminations, and political chaos.

While unfolding in a different context, Tanzania appears to be in the grip of a similarly dangerous alliance—one not between a politician and a billionaire, but between state operatives and shadowy criminal networks. This alliance, hidden from official view but all too evident in its effects, seems to have enabled an alarming string of abductions, beatings, and enforced disappearances, targeting critics of the government, opposition leaders, and even respected religious figures.

As a Swahili proverb wisely warns, “Ushirika wa wachawi haudumu”—the alliance of witches does not last. The Tanzanian alliance responsible for these atrocities may appear unassailable today, but like the Trump–Musk partnership, it carries within it the seeds of collapse.