His return follows President Samia Suluhu Hassan’s announcement this month of the end of a ban on political gatherings in Tanzania.

Tanzanian opposition leader and former presidential candidate Tundu Lissu returned home after more than two years in exile in Europe to a cheering crowd on Wednesday, after the government lifted a ban on political rallies.

A former lawmaker and a fierce critic of the government, Lissu initially left the country to seek treatment abroad after he was shot 16 times, mostly in his lower abdomen, in his car by unknown gunmen in the administrative capital Dodoma in 2017.