What the state of Electoral Democracy in the East African Community means!

All the East African community partner states have elections in the period from 2010 - 2012. However in four of these states, there are doubts on whether these elections will be free and fair. Far from the fairness of the elections themselves, talk of violence is rife in the four partner states of Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya. Tanzania also has elections in 2010.

In Burundi, the only candidate in the Presidential Election slated for June 28, 2010 is the incumbent alone after opposition candidates boycotted citing failures in the Electoral managers;

In Rwanda, Victoire Ingabire, an intending opposition candidate in the August 2010 election is under house arrest, other forms of opposition also stifled; of late the govt under attack for a suspected assasination attempt at an exiled former army chief;

In Uganda, the opposition alliance of five parties has been demonstrating against the Electoral Commision; with skirmishes that have pitted youths and women against the police and militant groups of soliders disguising as civilians, meanwhile the president threatened to cut off the head of the biggest kingdom in the country where kingdom officilas have resigned to contest elections in 2011.

In Kenya, talk of violence is rife with bombs aimed at an assembly in the city... National elections will be held in 2012 in Kenya!

With this brief peek into the state of electoral democracy and governance in the four partner states of the East African community, isn't it well-founded fear for some Tanzanians who in 2008 preffered a go-slow on the fast-tracking of the East African community?