Dictator in chief: The state of Constitutional collapse and human rights violations in Tanzania during the 2025 election cycle

Abstract

This paper argues that the 2025 Tanzanian election was not a genuine democratic exercise but a staged formality conducted after the state had dismantled the essential conditions for meaningful political competition. By the time citizens went to the polls, the outcome had already been predetermined through the detention and exile of key opposition leaders, the disqualification of major parties, bans on rallies, and intimidation of ordinary voters. The election period was further marked by serious human rights violations, including enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, torture, and an extensive internet shutdown that blocked transparency. The paper further contends that these events signal a deeper constitutional breakdown in which institutions such as the courts, parliament, and the electoral commission failed to perform meaningful oversight. Legal frameworks were weaponised to give a veneer of legality to repression, while post-election appointments of family members and loyalists to powerful ministries revealed the consolidation of a personalised and unaccountable system of governance. The analysis concludes that Tanzania’s crisis poses significant risks for regional stability, increases the likelihood of military intervention, and weakens Africa’s democratic norms. The silence and inaction of regional bodies, particularly the African Union and the East African Community, not only enable this authoritarian drift but also set a dangerous precedent that elections can be emptied of substance and rights violated at scale without consequence. 

“Ukiona serikali ambayo haitaki kukosolewa, tambua kuwa hiyo si serikali nzuri. Serikali inayokataa kusikia sauti za watu wake inaelekea kwenye udikteta, maana demokrasia ni sauti ya wananchi, si amri ya viongozi.” — Julius K. Nyerere.

 Allegedly, Tanzanians recently went to the polls to elect their next president. Allegedly. The word does heavy lifting here. Allegedly, for several reasons: Were these really polls, or an elaborate national theatre production staged for the benefit of international observers who forgot their glasses? After all, how does one ‘go to the polls’ when every formidable opposition candidate has been silenced into political oblivion, and one of the most prominent opposition figures sits behind bars, charged not with crimes but with the offense of daring to exist? Was this an election or a meticulously curated performance in which the script, cast, lighting, and ending had been predetermined by State House long before the first ballot box was ceremoniously displayed on television? And even if Tanzanians did “go,” where exactly did they go? To a polling station or to a funeral procession masquerading as civic duty? When the Southern African Development Community (SADC) itself boldly declared that there were no real elections and that the will of the people was not reflected.2 One wonders: what will, and which people? The same people who were subjected to abductions and violence did not live long enough to write wills, let alone cast ballots. The irony is almost biblical.