East African presidents are generally like many other African presidents. Although they head democratic countries, they do not take kindly to political opposition. Many are also averse to relinquishing power, no matter the circumstances.
The region has ample examples, starting with President Idi Amin Dada of the 1970s, who took office through a military coup and a few years later made himself President-for-Life.
Tanzania has joined Kenya and Uganda in suppression of Freedoms
Then there is President Kaguta Museveni, who has been unapologetic in suppressing any opposition against his government. Dr. Kizza Besigye, once President Museveni’s personal physician, has been incarcerated in his home country, Uganda, since 2024, when he was abducted from Kenya and charged with treason. Now, his wife is calling out about his failing health, but nobody seems to be paying much attention.
In Kenya, President Daniel arap Moi, the 2nd president, remained in office for 24 years, the last of which were marked by numerous cases of politically instigated torture and detentions, amid the country’s clamor for democratic space.
President Jomo Kenyatta, Kenya’s first president, and from whom Moi had taken the reins of power, ensured the country remained a de facto one-party state. He also sent a few political opponents and activists to detention.
However, he never formally tampered with the system of government. President Moi did that in 1982, when he got parliament to pass a law declaring Kenya a de jure one-party state.
Tanzania seems to be following an established script. Although the rise of the late Magufuli’s deputy to power seemed a great welcome to Tanzanians at the time, many are now disillusioned. They see President Samia Suluhu as regressing to the authoritarianism that was the hallmark of President Magufuli’s reign. As reported by the Guardian, during the 2025 general elections, the Tanzanian government shut down the internet and sent out the military.
And for the first time in history, Tanzania’s leadership was linked to hundreds, though human rights activists say thousands, of violent deaths of ordinary folk. Many of them had held peaceful protests in Dar es Salaam and other cities.
Earlier in May the same year, two human rights activists, Boniface Mwangi of Kenya, and Agather Atuhaire of Uganda, had fallen victim to the inhumane treatment of the Tanzanian regime. They had visited the country in solidarity with Tundu Lissu, a Tanzanian opposition leader whose court case was coming up for hearing.
They were detained, harassed, and molested, and what mainly came of it, besides welcome highlights by the media, was a word of protest from the US Senate and another from the US State Department. However, it is now business as usual in the governments of Tanzania and the US, just as it is in the countries whose citizens were assaulted and humiliated by a neighboring regime.
Nobody, but the Electorate, cares what Museveni, Suluhu, or Ruto do
Despite the violence and deaths during the October/November 2025 general elections in Tanzania and in January 2026 in Uganda, life at the global level goes on as usual. The aftermath of the violence and the notoriety of the concerned governments do not make headlines the way things used to happen in the 1980s, ‘90s, and the first decade of this third millennium.
Loans and grants are no longer pegged to a government’s human rights record or financial accountability. Also, the West is no longer interested in playing an oversight role, the way the US did in the early 1990s through the likes of Ambassador Smith Hempstone.
Hence, as Kenya gears up for the 2027 general elections, citizens should know that when the time comes, however the government behaves, they are on their own.
With Donald Trump in power and expressing an appetite to remain in power beyond his two constitutional terms, the US is not about to send
another Condoleezza Rice to restore sanity in the event of electoral chaos and human rights abuses. What this means, then, is this:
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- Kenyans should think soberly about whom to elect to power.
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- Will it be someone who respects the constitution or one likely to hang onto power when their time is due?
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- Will it be someone humane and empathetic, or one likely to see victims of political chaos as mere statistics?
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- Is it one who understands the economics of earning and taxation, or one whose wealth origins are shady deals or benefits from rogue regimes?
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- The sober and enlightened section of the electorate should influence things at their local level. This means:
- ***mobilizing the youth to take ID cards
- ***mobilizing the youth to register as voters at locations closest to their places of residence.
Fact: Many registered voters fail to cast their ballots because of travel inconveniences, lack of ample leave of absence from work, and fear of being trapped in chaos over long distances.
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- Speaking candidly about the kind of candidate worthy, or not worthy, of your vote
Reason: Some prejudices are so deeply entrenched that some people shy away from voting in a certain way, even when they think it is the right way. They fear they might be in the minority, and to them, their candidate not winning means a wasted vote.
The sober and enlightened folk should let it be known that:
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- It is normal and in order to vote for someone of a different tribe
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- It is normal and in order to vote for a woman president
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- It is in order to vote for someone who does not dish out money to voters.
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- It is in order to spend your personal resources to help your chosen candidate, without expecting a special reward as lobbyists do.
Voters need to accept the Outcome of the Decisions they make
Now that Trump is busy unleashing ICE, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, on US immigrants, even some with citizenship, Kenyans should not expect him to care if they decide to tear each other up.
They should keep this in mind as they navigate this period of premature campaigns, and even as August 2027 draws near. They should be wary of politicians who are already causing tensions reminiscent of the 2007/08 politically instigated violence. After all, as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) noted during the Moi era, old habits die hard.
Everyone should consider civil education a personal responsibility and disseminate it to the extent possible, because the government does a poor job of it. Then cast their votes and hope their efforts bear fruit. After all, it is incumbent upon citizens to maintain peace as they exercise their right to vote, just as it is on the sitting president and his government machinery to uphold the rule of law throughout the process.