A majority of the polity in the two senior East African Community countries of Uganda and Tanzania seem to be rooting for a win by ODM presidential candidate Raila Odinga. In both countries ruled under a militarized authoritarian regime and a dominant one party system respectively, Kenya is admired for its high level of democratisation and vibrant political environment. In spite of Tanzania’s hesitation regarding the fast tracking of the East African political federation, many citizens across the region increasingly see themselves as sharing not only a common historical legacy, but inevitably, a common destiny. Hence the great interest with which the political contest in Kenya is being followed beyond borders.

An informal survey across both countries reveals deep rooted dissatisfaction with the status quo within their own countries. An opposition win in Kenya is therefore likely to be celebrated vicariously. Both countries have been ruled by the same party for more than twenty years, Tanzania by an overwhelmingly strong CCM (and its predecessor TANU) since independence in 1961, while Museveni and his NRM has ruled Uganda with an iron fist since 1986.

Tanzanian media is rife with widespread public disenchantment against President Kikwete’s administration on grounds of grand high-level corruption, abuse of office and failure to deliver on his 2005 election pledges. Uganda’s opposition, media, civil society and academic elite are increasingly critical of President Museveni’s authoritarianism and micro-management of every aspect the country’s affairs to the detriment of true democracy and institutionalism.

Just as the 2002 resounding defeat of KANU by NARC was an inspiration to a repressed and harassed opposition in Uganda where political parties were still banned, an ODM win is to them a beacon of hope that come 2011, the electorate can be emboldened to turn tables against incumbent president Yoweri Museveni. Opposition parties in Tanzania have sent some of their representatives to understudy opposition campaign strategies in Kenya ahead of the next election in 2010. Raila’s casting himself as the people’s president resonates with a majority of the citizenry across the borders that see the stewardship of their countries’ destiny as having been captured by a political elite intent only on entrenching themselves in power and enriching themselves at the expense of the masses.

Makerere University lecturer Dr. Oloka Onyango, currently the Director of the Human Rights and Peace Centre (HURIPEC) and former Dean of Law and his Political Science counterpart Dr. Ssali Simba concur that president Museveni is the one single impediment to real democracy in Uganda. Current Makerere law faculty dean Dr. Sylvia Tamale is emphatic that only a revolution that will change the status quo against Museveni’s clique can save the country. One of Museveni’s most strident critics, journalist Andrew Mwenda is categorical that the only way to root out the entrenched channels of corruption, state patronage and militarism that sustains Museveni in power is regime change. These sentiments are pervasive throughout Ugandan society including among vibrant and politically conscious youth associations such as the Uganda Young Democrats (UYD) and the apolitical National Youth Council. Even NRM party officials secretly concur that corruption in government goes right to the top.

In Tanzania, a large majority of its citizenry, both urban and especially rural are increasingly discarding their long held unquestioning belief, inculcated through many years of socialism, that the party and government is the benefactor that has their best interests at heart. In its accelerated privatization programme and opening up of its mining and natural resources sector for exploitation, revelations of massive corruption involving cabinet ministers and cronies of President Kikwete, questionable mining contracts and associated kickbacks have the citizenry up in arms. This has emboldened the four main opposition parties to form a coalition that has taken the government to task.

The government in Dar is hard pressed to justify itself and a recent November opinion poll by the University of Dar es Salaam shows the popularity of both the president and the government has plunged significantly since his more than 80 percent landslide victory and high confidence rating in 2005. Consequently, all these groups in both countries favour an opposition win in Kenya to both embolden the citizenry and the especially the opposition as well as to serve notice to the incumbent that he could be dealt the same card come the next election time.

On the other side of the coin, the political establishment in both countries feels very jittery about an opposition win in Kenya for the very same reasons and more. According to Dr. Simba, Kenya’s relatively weak foreign policy during the Kibaki administration gave an opening to Museveni to step in as the preferred regional partner on security and counter-terrorism, thus raising his stature significantly. Uganda’s hosting of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Summit, its posting of Troops to Somalia and Museveni’s assumption of the Chair of the Commonwealth are testimony to his continued standing as one of a new breed of African leaders. Unlike Kibaki, Raila on the other hand has cast himself as a Pan-Africanist with a strong preference for closer and stronger regional integration.

A Raila administration is likely to have a more proactive foreign policy and with its stronger economy and influential track record in brokering the Somali and Sudan peace accords, Museveni’s position seems quite shaky. The Tanzanian government is likely to recoil further on the prospect of a Raila win in view of its reluctance regarding the fast-tracking of regional integration.

From a more ideological standpoint, for most of those at the forefront of the fight for political pluralism, social and economic liberation and generational change in the region, Raila represents the vanguard force that fought for the second liberation in Africa. For them, the true leaders of the second liberation, the likes of Martin Shikuku, James Orengo, Paul Muite, Gobson Kamau Kuria, Charles Rubia, Kenneth Matiba and Raila’s own father Jaramogi Oginga Odinga to name but a few were cheated of their rightful place when the current holders of state power in Kenya usurped the fruits of their struggle just as the colonial collaborators reaped the fruits of the Mau Mau fighters, leaving the true heroes of independence languishing to date.

Dar es Salaam university law professors Dr. John Palamagambe Kabudi and Dr Sengondo Mvungi therefore see a Raila win righting history. They recall the repressive days of the Moi regime when they gave shelter and safe passage to those that were branded dissidents and hunted down by the dictatorial KANU regime. Most of the so called Mwakenya sympathizers, many of them University dons and intellectuals such as Koigi wa Wamwere found their way out through Uganda or Tanzania, harboured by their counterparts in Makerere or the University of Dar es Salaam.

Renowned Tanzanian Professor T.L Malyamkono for instance proudly displays in his office a photo of him and Raila, next to one of him and Mandela and is proud to call Raila his personal friend. To such and many more across the region, its time that the true soldiers of the second struggle, those who truly paid a price for their convictions and understand the birth pangs of democracy, it is time that they earned their rightful place in leadership and charting the future course, not only of Kenya, but the entire region, and its only a matter of time before the other countries, in their own way follow suit.