President of Zanzibar President of Zanzibar The President of Zanzibar is the head of the Revolutionary Government of Zanzibar, which is a semi-autonomous government within Tanzania. The current President is Ali Mohamed Shein. The President is also the chairman of the Revolutionary Council, whose members are appointed by the President, and some of which must be selected from the House of Representatives. The President is elected by a plurality. Presidential terms are for five years, and a candidate may be re-elected only once. Following the Zanzibar Revolution in 1964, Abeid Karume became the first President of Zanzibar, as leader of the Afro-Shirazi Party.
History of Zanzibar Portuguese Empire was the first European power to gain control of Zanzibar, and kept it for nearly 200 years. In 1698, Zanzibar fell under the control of the Sultanate of Oman, which developed an economy of trade and cash crops, with a ruling Arab elite and a Bantu general population. Plantations were developed to grow spices; hence, the moniker of the Spice Islands (a name also used of Dutch colony the Moluccas, now part of Indonesia). Another major trade good was ivory, the tusks of elephants that were killed on the Tanganyika mainland - a practice that is still in