East African Community: Is democracy on the wane?

To ensure that the East African Community (EAC) states achieve their objectives, the East African Community Treaty stipulates that these member states shall adhere to the principles of democracy, rule of law, accountability, transparency, social justice, equal opportunities, gender equality as well as the recognition, promotion, and protection of human and peoples’ rights under the provisions of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights.  

Following the admission, of war-ravaged Somalia last year the economic bloc has within 25 years of its revival expanded to eight states from the three states – Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania that led the way in its revitalisation of the Economic bloc -  but the efforts to build a democratic region seems to be warning with Kenya which had given the region reason to believe that the democratisation is possible also deteriorating.

 Kenya’s position on democracy has been questioned after  It’s president William Ruto, who is serving a third year as president,  opened the new year by starting a cold war with the country’s judiciary making it clear how he would flout court orders that stand in way of his prized policies. 

Accusing judges of corruption  Ruto said some unnamed judges are working arm in arms with Kenya’s political opposition to delay his key projects for instance housing fund and universal healthcare initiatives.  

“We are a democracy. We respect, and we will protect the independence of the judiciary. What we will not allow is judicial tyranny and judicial impunity,” Ruto said, adding that it is not possible that his government will venerate the judiciary while a few individuals, who he didn’t mention,  are beneficiaries of corruption and are using corrupt judicial officials to block what he termed as his development projects.  

There was an immediate clapback from legal and political circles with Kenya’s Law Society ( KLS ) leading the way.   

“We’re concerned as LSK that we begin the year with a dark cloud hovering around the justice system following remarks by the President. Those remarks are a threat to the rule of law...we want the President to retract or else they will send very bad signals,” The KLS said.  

“We remind the President that the same courts upheld his election based on impartiality and at one time nullified another. 

The President should refrain from undermining the Judiciary.” 

Constitutionalism has been a thorn in the flesh of East African countries with Kenya doing relatively better than other community members after putting in place a  new constitutional order in the aftermath of the 2007 post-election violence in which thousands died and many were displaced prompting Kenyans to adopt a new constitution that had many progressive clauses like reducing the executive powers, devolving authority, and guaranteeing rights to women, minorities, and marginalised communities but it also maintained the two-term presidential limit that was adopted in 1992 during the Moi era. 

Following Ruto’s attacks on the Judiciary, the opposition has insisted that he wants to plunge  East Africa’s biggest economy into both political and economic anarchy. 

“The problem with William Ruto is that he wants to be a tyrant like Moi yet he doesn’t have Moi’s constitution. He wants to be a Kibaki yet he lacks the team and intellect that delivered the Rainbow Dream. He wants to be a wealthy Mobutu and pretend to fight corruption,” Senator Moses Otieno Kajwang, who belongs to the opposition’s Orange Democratic Movement (ODM),  said.  

Kenya is not the only country in the region facing a constitutional and political crisis because the Democratic Republic of Congo which was admitted to the bloc in 2022 is going through uncertainty after Felix Tshisekedi controversially won a second term with 73 percent of the Vote. 

When  Tshisekedi controversially won his first term in 2019 experts say the US chose to ignore the apparent fraud that had been committed on grounds that antagonising him might play into the hands of China but Americans have been vocal asking the Joe Biden administration to rethink its DR Congo policy.   

“The he flawed  DRC  elections must trigger a reset of US policy to prioritise the Congolese people. Biden Admin’s past strategy of being all-in on the Tshisekedi government doesn’t serve US interests to counter China  and risks democracy , anti-corruption efforts & security in the DRC,” Senator James Risch who seats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.   

Even before the elections, US senators were warning of ramifications should the DR elections be compromised.  

“Furthermore, I support the Biden Administration’s stated intent to use all available tools to ensure accountability for anyone who seeks to undermine the democratic process in the DRC,” Cory Booker who belonged to Biden’s party, the Democratic  Party, said.

“The Congolese people must be able to exercise one of their most fundamental rights—the right to vote—and the Congolese authorities, including  CENI [ Independent National Electoral Commission ], must work to ensure all Congolese can exercise this right, through a fair and transparent process.”  

The  Congolese main opposition seems to have borrowed a leaf from  Uganda‘s opposition leaders who have increasingly made it clear that challenging  President  Museveni‘s election victories in courts is a waste of time since he has filled them with the cadres of the National  Resistance Movement (NRM).  

Similarly,  Moise Katumbi, who came second, and  Martin Fayulu, who is widely believed to have won the 2019 elections but came a distant third in the December 2023 elections, have ruled out challenging  Tshisekedi’s victory in court saying that judges have been compromised.

“Knowing how Felix Tshisekedi appointed the members of this court on 17 July 2020, we can expect nothing from it,” Fayulu, the former energy minister,   who has called for protests said.  

Fayulu seems to have learnt his lessons because in  2019 the  Congolese Constitutional Court dismissed his petition challenging  Tshisekedi’s victory.   At the time,   DR Congo’s Constitutional Court was generally believed to be in the firm grip of Joseph Kabila,  the outgoing president, who had struck a back-door deal with his rival Tshisekedi after it emerged that  Emmanuel Shadary, his preferred candidate would be trounced.  

It didn’t come as a surprise when Fayulu  rejected the  court’s judgement saying   that the  Constitutional Court Justices  had   just confirmed what he termed as  a dictatorial regime by authenticating false results thus  permitting  “a constitutional coup d’etat.” 

Though the main opposition is calling for protests Théodore Ngoy, who came last in the presidential election having obtained 0.02 percent of the vote, decided to file a petition just before the expiration of its deadline. 

“I thought that the harm done to democracy, human rights and the rule of law should not be confirmed by the Court without the Céni having to justify itself”,  Ngoy told Radio France  Internationale or RFI.   South Sudan, whose president, Saliva Kiir, is the current chair of the EAC, is facing a constitutional crisis of its own since the presidential elections slated to happen at the end of this year are still in doubt.  

South Sudan, got its independence in 2011 making it one of the youngest countries on earth but it has since faced an all-out civil war starting in 2013 and it has struggled to organize presidential elections. 

In 2018, Kiir, penned a peace deal with Riek Machar his former Vice President turned rebel leader formally ending a five-year war that had seen the death of thousands. 

With that elections were due to be held in February this year but it never happened as the forged government of national unity of Kiir and   Machar failed to meet key clauses of the deal.  Furthermore, the UN has also ruled out the possibility of South Sudan having elections this year.  

“Looking ahead, it would be impossible to envision free, fair, and credible elections in December 2024, unless all South Sudanese parties, leaders, and stakeholders grab the bull by the horns, and agree on a critical mass of decisions by the first quarter of 2024,” Nicholas Haysom, the head  United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS ), explained. 

This doesn’t  augur well with Article 7 (2)  of the East African Treaty  which stipulates  that: “Partner States undertake to abide by the principles of good  governance, including adherence to the principles of democracy, the rule of law, social justice and the maintenance of universally accepted standards of human rights.” 

Rwanda, just like Uganda, scrapped the two-term limits in 2015 because maintaining them would have meant that the country’s strong man Kagame wouldn’t have run in the 2107 elections which he won 99 percent with the opposition stifled. 

That referendum that scrapped the term limits also gave Kagame a chance to run for an additional seven-year term and then two five-year terms, which means he could conceivably stay in power until 2034.

“Kagame’s landslide win came as no surprise in a context in which Rwandans who have dared raise their voices or challenge the status quo have been arrested, forcibly disappeared, or killed, independent media have been muzzled, and intimidation has silenced groups working on civil rights or free speech,” the Human Rights Watch- New York-based human rights body Characterised Kagame’s 99 percent victory.”

Yet the Rwandan authorities took no chances with the presidential vote, as repression continued in recent months despite the weak prospects for any opposition candidate.”

In Tanzania, President Samia Suluhu has shelved constitutional reforms that the opposition welcomed because they would have leveled the playing field in the 2025 presidential elections.   

Suluhu,  who is completing John Magufuli’s term having assumed the presidency in 2021, based on being the deceased’s Vice President,  will contest in the 2025 elections to get a term on her own.   

But in the move that has shocked the opposition she has walked back her promise of putting in place constitutional reforms saying her government’s priority is to conduct a nationwide dialogue and civic education to inculcate knowledge amongst the citizenry of the contents of the present.  

The Tanzanian opposition wants amendments in the constitution because in its current form it gives enormous power to the president and has no provision for courts to overturn the presidential election results announced by the electoral commission.

Just like in Uganda, The Tanzanian president appoints judges and members of the electoral commission, something the opposition contends makes the playing field unlevelled.