I was in Nairobi on October 29, 2025, when Tanzania held its presidential election. Samia Suluhu Hassan won with 97.66% of the vote. The two leading opposition candidates had been barred from running.
The African Union and SADC both condemned the result. Hundreds died in protests. The internet was shut down on election day. A female suicide bomber was killed near a voting area in Dar es Salaam.
Tanzania had been, within living regional memory, a model of quiet governance — low drama, functional institutions, the CCM delivering something recognizable as stability. What the 2025 election revealed is that stability had been, for decades, a different thing from legitimacy. The CCM had governed so long that it had ceased to distinguish between itself and the state it governed.
The 97.66% is not a number. It is a signal. It says: the system no longer requires you to agree. It will simply record that you did.
Nearby, in Kenya, the same year saw a government brand its own citizens as terrorists for marching. The regional pattern is not coincidental. East African states are learning from each other about which tools to use when the accountability architecture gets too close.
Letters from the year of waiting: https://www.mydearsoldier.com/
Gabriel Mahia writes from the intersection of U.S. institutional infrastructure and East African operational reality. This essay is part of the Year in Kenya series — twelve months, April 2025 to April 2026.
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