Is Eastern Africa Abandoning Democracy?

Democracy is on the decline in east africa that was the assessment of tigere chaguta amnesty international's regional director for eastern southern africa and a piece for the non-profit organization the africa center he argued that despite democracy remaining the preferred system of governance in the region lenders had failed to deliver on its promise and

Had instead entrenched a steady decline in democratic norms and practices and he isn't the only one to make that argument political analyst nanjala nyabola and researcher edmund bamba made similar points in pieces for al jazeera and the horn international institute for strategic studies respectively local governance expert dr caroline mose in an exclusive

Interview with the war france team went even further saying that democracy has never really worked in east africa however local governments would disagree with this assessment in their view democracies are actually flourishing across the region they would point to regular elections constitutional frameworks and functioning parliaments as evidence that

Democratic institutions are operating as intended when pressed on concerns about declining freedoms or authoritarian drift governments often point out that their countries are simply adapting democracy to fit local context and security needs they contend that western definitions of democracy often don't account for the unique challenges facing east african

Nations from terrorism to ethnic tensions to economic instability and this gap between the experts who insist that democracy is dying and governments that claim everything is just fine raises an interesting question what's really happening to east africa's democratic states elections one of the easiest ways to tell whether a nation is abandoning democracy is

In how it carries out its elections a general rule of thumb is that any state jailing or beating up opposition candidates failing to carry out a peaceful transfer of power or shooting protesters after a contested election isn't going to win any gold stars for democratic governance and by these measures east africa's recent elections have failed miserably

Take your gander on the 15th of january 2026 the east african nation home to about 50 million people went to the polls for the seventh time since president yoweri muservani overthrew the government of general tito okello in 1985. the years before 1985 had been a particularly turbulent time for kapala with multiple coups and dictators including the infamous

City arm in however after missovani formed the fourth republic in 1986 expectations ran high that a golden age for democracy was dawning especially after the introduction of a new constitution in 1995 that enshrined key democratic pillars including presidential term limits however it wouldn't be long before missovani did to those democratic pillars what

Samson did to the pillars in the temple tore them the down musulvani changed the constitution to eliminate term and age limits and worked to intimidate potential challenges through arrests and violence his main opponents this time around is a musician known as bobby wine is a musician known as bobby wine was attacked by security guards in Gulu about a month

Before the elections.

Another opposition figure, Dr. Kiza Basige, couldn't participate at all since he'd been in detention for more than a year on treason charges. Two days before voting began, the government ordered a nationwide internet shutdown, citing the need to prevent misinformation.

The blackout made it impossible for opposition parties to communicate with their polling agents or for independent observers to verify what was happening at voting stations across the country. The elections themselves saw the lowest turnout in Uganda's history, with only 52.5% of eligible voters choosing to participate.

Despite these low numbers, President Museveni managed to score 71.65% of the vote, nearly equalling his 1996 performance, a time when he was actually still popular.

The elections in Uganda represent what analysts have dubbed competitive authoritarianism, where elections continue, but their purpose has fundamentally shifted. Instead of being genuine contests of power, the electoral process becomes a mechanism for the regime to demonstrate its dominance over the state.

Opposition participation is tolerated only because it provides a veneer of legitimacy to the entire process.

The opposition being tolerated, however, doesn't mean that elections are fair. In fact, it's the opposite. The incumbent regime gets to use the state machinery to promote its agenda and frustrate any opportunity that the opposition has to try and build momentum.

European nations falling into this category include states like Russia that few would call true democracies. But there's also another fact to consider.

According to Professor Christophe Tateka from the University of Antwerp, given that Museveni is 81 years old, Uganda's elections are best understood not primarily as an electoral contest, but as a multi-layered struggle over succession, access, and positioning within a late Museveni political order.

He argues that the violence and securitization of civic space are less electoral issues rather than an attempt at positioning for a life after Museveni. Perhaps the best example of this is Thomas Tayebua, the deputy speaker of Uganda's parliament and an MP representing Rohingya North.

Since he was unopposed in his constituency, Tayebua didn't need to worry about a challenger to his seat.

Instead, he spent his time crisscrossing the country, brokering deals between rival NRM factions, mediating reconciliation meetings, and receiving hundreds of opposition defectors who he personally welcomed into the ruling party.

Ugandan journalist Mike Sagawa wrote that this was an attempt by Tayebua to secure his place in the succession conversations, not necessarily as a candidate, but as a kingmaker.

If this view holds, it would mean that Uganda's democratic decline is likely to accelerate even further as factions within the regime jockey for power, with each crackdown serving not to preserve the current system, but to establish dominance in whatever comes next.

Uganda's electoral farce, however, is not an isolated case in the region. In Rwanda's 2024 presidential election, Paul Kagame emerged victorious with more than 99% of the vote.

The result was hardly surprising, given that his worst performance was in 2010, when he could only... muster a mere 93 percent of the vote that poor guy like uganda rwanda's elections have become elaborate performances where the outcome is predetermined and the margin of victory serves only to demonstrate the regime's total control over the electoral process

Elections in rwanda's southern neighbor burundi aren't much different during the 2025 parliamentary elections the ruling cndd fdd party won every single seat in parliament after the government went to great lengths to neutralize the main opposition party cnl which had placed second in the previous elections burundi's interior ministry initially suspended the

Party in 2023 over alleged irregularities in how it held meetings in 2024 while party leader agasson rawasa was abroad cnl ousted him in a move widely seen as orchestrated by the government he was replaced by nestor guruk waksaka a former minister with close ties to the ruling party in what most observers saw as a government-backed internal coup while these

Were egregious in their own right they didn't receive a lot of attention because while both nations pay lip service to the idea of democracy they are essentially ruled by the rebel groups that won their country's respective civil wars what really captured the world's attention was tanzania a country that had until very recently been considered an anchor of

Stability in the region in late october 2025 tanzania held presidential elections in which the incumbent president samir saluhu hassan faced 16 challenges notably absent were her two main challenges chadima party leader tundu lissu who had been jailed for months on treason charges while another opposition figure lahaga mapina of the act oasalendo group was

Barred from running when the results were announced hassan who before the elections was widely seen as one of the country's most unpopular leaders had secured 97.66 of the vote which if we're being honest seems at a level which might even make rwanda's kagame blush and that's especially when you consider that her predecessor john magafuli only received 58.4

Of the vote in 2015. even in 2020 when the elections were marred by widespread allegations of irregularities he only received 84 of the vote again poor guy hassan's government on the other hand wasn't even trying to make the numbers plausible for a democracy they had fully embraced the model champions by other clad nations that were nothing more than a tool

For the party in power to remind the whole country that it was very much in charge but that pales compared to what came next state violence after the results of tanzania's elections were announced protests erupted almost immediately demonstrators took to the streets of dar eslam and other major cities burning tires blocking roads and bonding that the

Government address what they saw as blatant electoral theft security forces responded with overwhelming force with several outlets reporting that government forces had shot at unarmed protesters the government also imposed a nationwide internet blackout deployed roadblocks across the country and instituted curfews in major cities the scenes that came out of

Tanzania were oddly reminiscent of what the world later witnessed after the protests in Iran.

Rows and rows of dead bodies in morgues and anywhere else they could find space. Opposition sources claimed that 2,000 people were killed, while outlets such as the BBC had a more conservative death toll at 500.

The international community responded with condemnation, with the European Parliament calling for the suspension of funding for the East African nation.

However, this was pretty much a slap on the wrist, given how ineffective it was at pressuring the Tanzanian government. And this is perhaps the greatest lesson from Tanzania's crackdown. Hassan's government understood exactly how much violence it could deploy without triggering meaningful international intervention.

The violence was brutal enough to crush dissent, but calculated enough to avoid the kind of response that topples governments elsewhere. This kind of violence isn't unique to Tanzania.

After Uganda's elections, General Mahusi Kainuragaba, Museveni's son and the chief of Uganda's defense forces, took to social media with threats that in a functioning democracy would have ended political careers.

He claimed security forces killed 22 opposition supporters, and he hoped Bobby Wine would be the 23rd. He later claimed responsibility for a military raid on Wine's compound, where soldiers assaulted Wine's wife in an attempt to find out where the opposition leader was hiding.

In Burundi, civil society organizations have documented scores of incidents, including 605 extrajudicial executions and more than 800 arbitrary detentions that were allegedly committed by state agents or individuals acting with their approval.

U.N. experts warned that these attacks were being used to intimidate the general population and opposition figures, creating a climate of fear meant to ensure the ruling party stayed in power. Even Kenya, the region's most stable democracy, hasn't been spared the violence as the world saw during the 2024 and 2025 protests.

The protests, which initially began as an outburst of anger at a punitive finance bill, quickly morphed into a broader indictment of the government's perceived failures, including rampant corruption and lack of accountability to ordinary citizens.

The government's response was, in a word, violent. Human Rights Watch reported that at least 60 young protesters were killed in June 2024 alone. Tear gas, water cannons, and live ammunition were used against unarmed demonstrators.

Even after the protests, activists were targeted for extrajudicial abductions, most famously the blogger Albert Ojuang, who was arrested over a post on X and vanished inside Nairobi's central police station. Police later claimed he had committed suicide, but a post-mortem confirmed he'd been beaten to death.

For many Kenyans, the violence brought back uncomfortable memories.

First of the Moy years. Under President Daniel Moy, who ruled from 1978 to 2002, the country experienced severe democratic backsliding. Moy turned Kenya into a single-party state, systematically dismantled checks on executive power, and used security forces to crush dissent.

The nation's current president, William Bruto, was Moy's protégé, and there was a fear he would resort to his... endorsed tactics with similar results second the violence evoked memories of the 2007-2008 post election violence during which hundreds died and hundreds of thousands were displaced the crisis threatened to tear the nation apart and undo all the

Democratic gains that had been made in the post more years the fact that it didn't is a testament to the strength of the international community's response and of kenya's institutions the law society of kenya an organization made up of all practicing advocates in kenya sued the government over the unconstitutional deployment of the military against

Protesters the independent policing oversight authority launched investigations into the fatal police shootings and some officers faced charges which was a rare instance of accountability in the region the country's judiciary also stepped up with chief justice martha kum publicly condemning the abductions as a direct assault on the rule of law and ordering

The courts to work extended hours to process cases of those wrongfully arrested and it's here that we get to the key method for tracking how far back a democracy has slid whether its institutions are still capable of holding the government to account institutions unlike in kenya where the nation's institutions prevented a full-scale democratic backsliding in

Uganda the government has managed to co-opt them into agents of the state and those it could not co-opt it has managed to frighten into submission let's start with the press which has long been the target of government repression in october 2025 journalists from nation media group uganda one of the country's leading media houses had their parliamentary and

Presidential accreditation withdrawn according to chris obel parliament's director of communication and public affairs the move was not a ban rather just a routine security measure however the african commission on human and people's rights alleges this happened in retaliation for critical reporting the commission also recorded that in the same month the

Observer newspapers officers were ransacked with 12 computers stolen and it's not just bans and stolen property in july 2025 canary magume an investigative journalist with nbs television was violently assaulted in kampala by unknown assailants who pulled him from his vehicle punched his face and eyes and took his mobile phone according to a report by the u.n

Human rights office at least 32 journalists and media workers were either assaulted or had their equipment confiscated during a recent parliamentary by-election even ordinary citizens haven't been spared courts have sentenced individuals to prison simply for mocking mussavani which no matter how distasteful he personally finds it should be protected under

Free speech which is guaranteed in the ugandan constitution in the wake of such actions self-censorship has become the rational choice according to the policy think tank the collaboration on international ict policy for east and southern asia or sapasa the judiciary has fared no better while the ugandan constitution outlines provisions for an independent

Judiciary the judiciary's actual independence is non-existent a 2024 report by bertelsman stiftones transformation index bti document it the appointment of what it called cadre judges who are sympathetic to or supportive of the nrm and president musovini the report claims that these judges ironically don't exercise independent judgment especially in cases

Involving the president or the interest of his political allies basically the bti reiterated a point that long-time uganda observers have been making for years now but while the separation of powers is enshrined in uganda's constitution in practice it is largely non-existent civil society has faced its own systematic dismantling on the 9th of january the

National bureau for non-governmental organizations suspended the operating permits of five prominent civil service organizations and froze their accounts citing alleged prejudice to the nation's security all this taken together paints the picture of a nation where democratic institutions have all but collapsed and despite the government paying lip service to

Democracy the country is functionally a dictatorship in tanzania institutions face similar challenges the media which has faced significant government pressure since the introduction of the media services act 2016 has been operating under increasingly impossible conditions the act granted the government broad authority over media content and licensing with

Severe penalties for defamation or seditious content by 2025 the threat of treason charges had become so pervasive that when three journalists were killed during election protests their deaths went largely unreported by local outlets as one media owner told the committee to protect journalists quoting him here we cannot publish i have a lot i want to write

But i can't they will come to you and give you a treason charge if you publish the judiciary faces its own challenges with the non-profit organization freedom house pointing out that since it doesn't have an independent budget it is susceptible to political pressure as for civil society the tangiiki law society is documented multiple cases of people going

Missing under mysterious circumstances including activist edgar machabela who was kidnapped and tortured by suspected state agents in rwanda and burundi institutions exist not so much as independent entities but rather as extensions of the ruling party still despite all these challenges there's a glimmer of hope that east africa won't entirely abandon

Democracy kenya for all its faults has perhaps the strongest democracy in the region supported by the 2010 constitution passed in the wake of the post-election violence independent courts and strong civil society institutions in 2017 kenya became the third country in the world and the first country in africa to annull a presidential election because the

Supreme court determined that the election had been compromised by irregularities and illegalities the court ordered a fresh election demonstrating that kenya's judiciary had the independence to check executive power even in the most politically sensitive circumstances it was a remarkable assertion of institutional strength in a region where courts typically

Rubber stamp whatever result the ruling party declares but even kenya's stronger democratic framework network still remains vulnerable as exposed by the government reaction to the recent protests so to answer the question in our title whether east africa is abandoning democracy the answer depends on where you look rwanda uganda and burundi are autocratic

States that occasionally make pretenses to be democratic tanzania has recently crossed their threshold and it remains to be seen whether this is a temporary backsliding or a permanent shift towards authoritarianism and then there are the countries we haven't mentioned because they simply don't qualify as democracies south sudan the region's youngest country

Hasn't had an election since its founding in 2011 eritrea hasn't had national elections since 1993 and the nation's leader is the textbook definition of a dictator and somalia well i mean somalia somalia what else do we need to say while ethiopia will hold an election later this year is widely expected that the ruling prosperity party will win after all they

Received 89 of the vote in 2021 during an election that the u.s described as deeply flawed and that was before the nation was engulfed by the tigray war the ongoing insurgency anamhara and other upheavals that have made conducting fair votes just basically impossible so the region's only hope for democracy might be kenya which currently sits on a knife's

Edge with strong institutions that seem capable of holding back the rising tide of authoritarianism on one hand into government that has proven quite capable of using the powers of the state to silence dissent on the other the only question is which side will win in the long run thank you for watching