Tanzanian president drops pretence of reform amid retreat from democracy in east Africa

11 May 2025

In the lead-up to the October elections, Tanzania’s president is retreating from democracy – along with the rest of the east African region.

Democracy is in bad shape in east Africa and seems to be getting worse. Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan’s political reforms after she succeeded the authoritarian John Magufuli in 2021 raised a glimmer of hope – but she now seems to have regressed.

Reacting to the general retreat from democracy, Kenyan politician Martha Karua, a former member of Parliament and cabinet minister, and Raila Odinga’s running mate in the 2022 presidential elections, is leading a campaign against opposition party suppression in the region.

Her Pan-African Progressive Leaders Solidarity Network is demanding the “immediate withdrawal of charges against Mr Lissu and all political prisoners”. This refers to Tundu Lissu, the leader of Tanzania’s Chama cha Demokrasia na Maendeleo (Chadema) party, who was arrested and detained in April on treason charges. Chadema is pushing for electoral reforms ahead of the October general elections under the slogan “No Reforms, No Election”.

Karua’s group describes Lissu’s case as “emblematic of growing threats to democracy across Africa”. She has also joined the legal team defending Ugandan opposition leader Kizza Besigye and his ally Hajji Obeid Lutale, who were jailed without bail on charges of treason and illegal possession of weapons. Meanwhile, veteran Burundi opposition leader Agathon Rwasa has been sidelined from participating in next month’s elections.

The blatant aggression by Kainerugaba is particularly disturbing since it is widely believed Museveni is grooming him as a successor.

Ugandan opposition leader Bobi Wine, who ran against President Yoweri Museveni in the last presidential elections, posted this week about visiting his bodyguard, Eddie Mutwe, and other jailed party members in prison. Mutwe was abducted last month by armed men. Wine said they had been tortured and that military chief Muhoozi Kainerugaba – Museveni’s son – had personally participated in the assault.

Kainerugaba, who seems beyond the control of his father or anyone else, openly boasted on social media that he was holding Mutwe in his basement. Kainerugaba regularly posts threats to Wine and his officials. This blatant aggression is particularly disturbing since it is widely believed Museveni is grooming him as a successor.

And Kenya is somewhat complicit, having allowed Ugandan agents to abduct Besigye in Nairobi last December. Opposition activists report a spate of such abductions across the region.

None of the eight East African Community member states is a full democracy, according to Freedom House. Its 2025 report ranked Kenya as Partly Free and the rest as Not Free. Tanzania was demoted from Partly Free last year. The average score for EAC members was 22.875 out of 100 – way below the Partly Free threshold of 36. And the overall score of all eight declined from 187 in 2024 to 183 in 2025.

While Kainerugaba seems more straightforward, Samia is rather enigmatic. As Nicodemus Minde, Institute for Security Studies researcher in Nairobi, recently wrote, after succeeding Magufuli following his death in 2021, Samia seemed set to reverse his legacy. She “proudly championed the ‘Four Rs’ of reconciliation, resilience, reform and rebuilding.”

She ended Magufuli’s ban on political rallies, repealed his repressive media laws and released then Chadema leader Freeman Mbowe from prison. Mbowe had spent eight months in jail on terrorism charges.

But last year the wheels started coming off her reform initiative. Chadema official Ally Kibao was abducted and murdered in September, and another, Aisha Machano, was brutally attacked in October. In August, hundreds of Chadema officials and supporters, including Mbowe and Lissu, were detained ahead of a planned rally.

It appeared the crackdown was linked to the November 2024 local elections. Chadema raised concerns that they would not be free and fair, mainly because the management of the polls remained firmly in the hands of government officials and not an independent electoral commission.

Proposals to have election results challenged in court have been ignored by the ruling party, Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM). So the election system remained “completely captured by the ruling party”, as Minde told ISS Today. CCM won the local polls by a landslide after most opposition candidates had been banned.

And now her government has cracked down again in the lead-up to the October national elections by charging Lissu with the exaggerated offence of treason because Chadema threatened to boycott these elections too, failing electoral reforms.

Samia has also ‘consolidated her power by eliminating any potential competition from within CCM and now with the treason case Lissu is facing’.

This week, the courts ordered the state to bring Lissu to court for his next appearance on Monday, 19 May. He has been on a hunger strike in protest against being forced to appear in court only virtually. He is insisting on habeas corpus to protect himself against possible harm in jail.

It seems likely that the CCM is subjecting Lissu to legal harassment so that he and his party will be effectively ruled out of the October elections, leaving the field open to the CCM.

What is unclear about Samia, though, is why she has reversed her reform course. Until quite recently, the prevailing narrative was that she was failing to face down opposition to her reforms from Magufuli hardliners, who remained strong in the CCM and feared a Chadema win in the October elections.

But Minde told ISS Today that having removed several Magufuli loyalists early on, “she’s now turned to most Magufuli loyalists to beef up her government ahead of the elections”. She has also “consolidated her power by eliminating any potential competition from within CCM and now with the treason case Lissu is facing”.

If this is true, it would suggest that Samia has at last become her own woman. Though not in the way many had hoped she would. DM

Peter Fabricius, consultant, Institute for Security Studies (ISS) Pretoria.

First published by ISS Today.

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