World · Tanzania · Local power worldwide

Who runs local government in Tanzania?

On the mainland, elected district, town, municipal and city councils sit above a very local layer of elected village, hamlet (kitongoji) and street (mtaa) leaders, chosen in separate 'civil' elections every five years. At the same time, the president appoints regional and district commissioners, and village and ward executive officers are civil servants. The ruling party CCM, heir to TANU, won about 99% of local posts in November 2024, and its old ten-house cell leaders still act as informal neighbourhood contacts.

United Republic of Tanzania · Unitary presidential republic (with semi-autonomous Zanzibar) · Eastern Africa

The levels of government below the nation

Level	How it is chosen	What it does
Regions (31: 26 mainland, 5 Zanzibar)	Regional commissioner appointed by the president	Supervise local councils, keep law and order; regional secretariat gives technical advice.
Districts (about 150) and local government authorities (about 195 councils: city, municipal, town and district councils)	Councillors elected by ward with the general election; mayor or chair elected by councillors; council director appointed civil servant; district commissioner appointed by the president	Primary education, health, water, local roads, agriculture extension, local taxes.
Wards	One elected ward councillor; ward executive officer appointed; Ward Development Committee of the councillor and village/mtaa chairs	Coordinates development plans and supervises projects.
Villages (about 12,300, rural)	Village assembly of all adults elects the village chairperson and a village council of 15–25 (including hamlet chairs); village executive officer appointed	Village land management, by-laws, development plans, local security committees.
Vitongoji (hamlets, about 64,000) and mitaa (urban streets, about 4,300)	Hamlet chairpersons and mtaa chairpersons with six-member committees elected by residents; mtaa executive officer appointed	Closest level of government: introduction letters, local security, mobilisation.

Three questions about local power in Tanzania

Are local leaders elected?

Councillors and village, hamlet and mtaa chairpersons and committees are elected, and candidates must be sponsored by a political party. Regional and district commissioners are appointed by the president; council directors and village, ward and mtaa executive officers are civil servants. Ten-cell leaders are chosen within the party.

Which laws set up local government?

Local government is in Articles 145–146 of the constitution and the Local Government (District Authorities) and (Urban Authorities) Acts 1982. Villages, vitongoji and mitaa are formal, elected units. Ten-house cells are a party structure, not government; elders and sungusungu work largely by custom.

Who are local leaders accountable to?

Voters every five years; village assemblies can question village councils. Strong upward control: the President's Office–Regional Administration and Local Government (PO-RALG) supervises councils, and commissioners can intervene. Local elections are run by PO-RALG rather than the national electoral commission.

Traditional and customary authority

Tanzania abolished the official powers of chiefs soon after independence (1963), so chiefs have no formal administrative role, though some chiefly families and clan elders keep ceremonial standing. Elders still mediate land, inheritance and marriage disputes, especially among pastoral groups (for example Maasai laigwanak, spokesmen chosen by age-sets). Neighbourhood vigilance groups called sungusungu, which grew up among the Sukuma and Nyamwezi in the 1980s, keep order in parts of the north-west. In Zanzibar, each shehia (ward) is run by a sheha appointed by the government, and Kadhi's courts handle Muslim family matters.

Community and neighbourhood power

From 1964–65 the ruling party TANU organised every ten households into a 'ten-house cell' (nyumba kumi) under a cell leader (balozi). Cell leaders were party officials, not government, but they mediated neighbour disputes and passed information up and down; research in the late 1960s found they relayed orders downward better than they represented residents upward. CCM keeps cell leaders today, and they remain familiar informal contacts. Savings groups, religious organisations and water user associations are also important.

Points to know

Local government was abolished in 1972 and restored in 1982.
The November 2024 local elections returned CCM to 12,150 of 12,271 village chair posts contested (about 99%); the opposition called them unfair.
Ward councillors are elected with the general election, but village, hamlet and mtaa leaders have their own election a year earlier.
Women must hold at least a quarter of village council seats.

Local terms

Mtaa (plural mitaa): An urban street or neighbourhood unit with an elected chairperson and committee.
Kitongoji (plural vitongoji): A hamlet, the smallest unit within a village.
Balozi wa nyumba kumi: Ten-house cell leader, a ruling-party neighbourhood representative.
Sheha: Government-appointed head of a shehia (ward) in Zanzibar.

Sources

Tanzania (United Republic of)'s Constitution of 1977 with Amendments through 2005, Constitute Project, checked 14 October 2026
Country profile: Tanzania, OECD–UCLG SNG-WOFI, checked 14 October 2026
The local government system in Tanzania (country profile), Commonwealth Local Government Forum, checked 14 October 2026
President's Office – Regional Administration and Local Government (PO-RALG / TAMISEMI), Government of Tanzania, checked 14 October 2026
O'Barr, W. (1972) 'Cell Leaders in Tanzania', African Studies Review, Cambridge University Press, checked 14 October 2026
Return to social monitoring could provide early warning of radicalisation (ten-cell system research), Nordic Africa Institute, checked 14 October 2026
Tanzania: Reports of hundreds killed and detained following deadly election violence (Nov 2025), UN News, checked 14 October 2026