Washington’s warning carries weight. Tanzania receives over $3bn in US assistance annually, positioning it among America’s largest aid recipients in Africa.

Jeffrey Smith, executive director of Vanguard Africa and a leading voice on US policy in the region, says the moment demands clarity. “The billions the US provides Tanzania every year comes with responsibility. Washington must make clear that support is contingent on genuine democratic reforms and respect for human rights. Anything less is complicity in the regime’s gross abuses.”

Vanguard Africa joins the Platform for African Democrats in expressing deep concern over Cameroon’s October 12 election that included widespread irregularities, violence, and government manipulation of the results. Despite multiple opposition petitions and civil society evidence showing significant flaws and voter suppression, the long-standing incumbent Paul Biya was declared the winner amid escalating unrest, arrests, and disinformation. The statement urges respect for the Cameroonian people's will, calls for democratic reforms, and appeals to the international community to oppose further repression and support truth and justice.

Activists such as Jeffrey Smith of Washington lobbying firm Vanguard Africa argue that democratic backsliding in Africa harms the US long-term by eroding support for elections and emboldening would-be putschists who falsely claim to “reset” the system.

“This is a critical moment for Africa’s democratic trajectory, and it underscores the urgent need for solidarity, as well as genuine reforms that protect political freedoms, ensure independent electoral bodies and hold leaders accountable to the genuine will of the people,” Smith tells The Africa Report. “That the US State Department has been woefully silent thus far is only going to further embolden Biya and other autocrats across the region.”

The trend points to deeper structural problems with Africa’s underlying political environment, said Jeffrey Smith, executive director of democracy-focused Vanguard Africa nonprofit.

He said all three countries feature incumbents leveraging state resources to stay in power, partisan security forces as well as flawed legal processes.

“This is really symptomatic of competitive authoritarianism ... where elections are fundamentally imbalanced and skewed in favor of those already in power,” said Smith. “So the real issue is a lack of genuine political competition and accountability.”

Vanguard Africa joins international democracy advocates to urgently call for the immediate release and humane treatment of Tanzanian opposition leaders Tundu Lissu and John Heche, who have been detained under questionable circumstances. Together, we denounce the politically motivated charges, demand due process and transparency, and urge democratic institutions and global actors to hold Tanzania accountable for suppressing dissent and undermining free and fair elections.

The Biya regime appears to be using every tactic to undermine the democratic process, ”says Jeffrey Smith, a human-rights advocate and director of Vanguard Africa, listing restricted media coverage, intimidation and violence against opposition supporters and delays in releasing results. "Taken together, all of this fuels suspicions that the regime is trying to maintain its grip on power despite clear indications that the opposition won at the ballot box,” he says.

It’s a “total abdication of responsibility,” said Jeffrey Smith, of the Washington-based pro-democracy nonprofit Vanguard Africa. “Tyrants can now rob, steal and kill with greater impunity. Dictators are smiling today.”

Jeffrey Smith, founder of Vanguard Africa, a pro-democracy outfit in Washington, sees a “convergence of authoritarian tactics across east Africa”.

Jeffrey Smith, executive director of pro-democracy non-profit Vanguard Africa based in Washington, DC, says that while Tundu Lissu’s case has a high profile, people outside the country have not come to terms with the level of repression in Tanzania.

“Opposition members can’t hold private meetings in their homes,” he says. “And when it does happen, attendees are beaten unconscious, they’re hunted down by authorities, they’re arrested on frivolous charges.

“It really seems all steps are being taken to muzzle the opposition ahead of the October election. The regime knows they can’t win fairly and are doing everything in their power to steal the election before it happens.”

PR firms that work with authoritarian regimes “are helping to sanitize egregious human rights abuses, political repression and violence,” said Jeffrey Smith, executive director of pro-democracy advisory firm Vanguard Africa. “ And in the case of Rwanda, the killing of critics, the disappearance of opposition members, the complete muzzling of any semblance of independent media or human rights.”