When you thought democracy was growing in EA, dictators sprouted

President William Ruto with his Tanzanian counterpart Samia Suluhu during the inauguration of Namibia's President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah at State House Windhoek in Namibia. [PCS]

Tanzanian authorities last week arrested and tortured Kenyan and Ugandan human rights defenders for going to witness the treason trial of Chadema Party leader Tundu Antipas Lissu. Kenyans, except for regime enablers, have condemned Suluhu Hassan's authoritarian tactics and demanded for fundamental change.

In my interactions with colleagues as Speaker of the National Assembly for 10 years across Africa, it became clear that Africa's march to democracy has been a mixed record but, particularly troubling in East Africa.

Although coups and armed insurgencies in Sahelian states sully the democracy panorama in West Africa, the region is steadily marching forward in the right direction because there are many thriving and emerging democracies in West Africa, such as Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Liberia.

Ghana's democratic experience provided vital lessons for Kenya's parliament during my tenure. Senegal and Nigeria remain optimistic examples for democracy, in spite of their current troubles.

In the 1980s, Southern African states were gripped by civil wars and armed conflict against the last bastions of colonialism and Apartheid South Africa. The fall of the Ian Smith regime in Zimbabwe and apartheid in South Africa precipitated an end to the civil wars in Mozambique and Angola.

The end of the Cold War ushered hope for renewal in East and Central Africa, save for the brutal interruption by Rwanda genocide and the bloody collapse of Somalia and the former Zaire. Overall, East and Central Africa sighed with relief with the fall of the Barre, Mengistu, Amin, Obote and Mobutu Sese Seko chaos in the region.

In 1985, Tanzania's founding Father Julius Nyerere, resigned and peaceably handed over power to Ali Hassan Mwinyi and succession, occasioned by elections of some sort, have followed since.

Kenya made a clean break from the Moi administration in 2002 in a historic election that decimated the founding KANU party. She embarked on a troubled constitution reform leading to a new and much-acclaimed charter in 2010, albeit with a bloody interregnum in 2007 after a disputed presidential election.

After decades of brutal war, South Sudan ceded from Sudan under Kenyan mediation. Siyaad Barre's fall unleashed unprecedented transnational chaos from which Somalia is and Kenya in particular are yet to recover.

Meanwhile, Ethiopia, after the fall of Mengistu Haile Mariam experienced something close to a renaissance under the strong arm but charismatic rule of the late Meles Zenawi, a renaissance that collapsed into ethnic conflict after his demise.

Across East Africa, optimism soon dissipated when former liberators turned into tormentors incapable of democratic governance.

With the exception of Zimbabwe where politics is highly militarised and power monopolised by one political party, and eSwatini where an ancient and unaccountable monarchy holds sway, Southern Africa's democracy is defined by increasingly, accountable administrations - including in formerly war prone Angola - periodic and credible elections, presidential term limits, competitive elections and a modicum of sustained state formation and economic development.

To the contrary, in East Africa, constitutional rule is on the wane. South Sudan, Somalia continue in the race towards state collapse. Tanzania has stagnated while Kenya, despite periodic elections, is yet to become a constitutional state.

Despite the promise of the 2010 charter, Kenya is now the poster child of what happens when a state is captured by corrupt incompetents with no pretense for constitutional discipline.

The current regime has exacerbated Kenya's internal decay and loss of prestige and soft power in the region through systematic assault on Parliament, the press and judiciary domestically and the audacious export of its mendacity across East Africa.

Kenya, now, foments instability and rebellion and loots resources in neighbouring states. She sustains allied autocrats and aids their misrule.

Internally, the Ruto regime butchers and kidnaps citizens, fleeces and impoverishes them by heavy taxation.

Despite its impressive record after genocide, Rwanda has followed the example of its Ugandan patron example in Yoweri Museveni in brutalising its citizens and looting its neighbours under various guises.

Like Zimbabwe under Robert Mugabe, Uganda and Rwanda are highly militairised states ruled by everlasting leaders and know-it-all strongmen. Presidential limits were removed through contrived constitutional changes.

Single "liberation" armies and political parties dominate and stultify political landscapes in Rwanda, South Sudan and Uganda. In Rwanda specifically the regime enforces extreme loyalty and curbs on the legislature, judiciary and against media freedom and political organisation. The situation is dire and sicker in the poorer Burundi and the chaotic Democratic Republic of Congo.

Rwanda and Tanzania, after the retirement of President Benjamin Mkapa are smoother in their autocracy, thanks to the enduring legacy as a foundry and enabler of anticolonial struggles under Nyerere and Kagame's own sleek propaganda and exploitation of global guilt over the 1994 genocide. Tanzania and Rwanda, compared to Kenya and Uganda, are closed societies.

In Tanzania, Chama Cha Mapinduzi enjoys total and suffocating control over the state. There have been no meaningful constitutional changes to even the political and electoral playing ground and align Tanzania with plural politics.

Abduction and murder of political opponents internally and across border is now common in East Africa, including Kenya. All the failed, failing and disgraced regimes across East Africa now, increasingly, cooperate and outsource expertise and resources to launder money and conduct extraterritorial renditions for personal and group survival.

Not long ago, Dr Kizza Besigye was abducted from Nairobi to a military show trial in Uganda. In blatant abuse of due process, Kenya has exiled its own citizens to foreign lands and renditioned dissidents to sure death and torture in South Sudan and Ethiopia.

-The writer is a former Cabinet Secretary