The Democratic Alliance (DA) said on Wednesday Tanzania’s elections would not be free or fair as the State muzzled opposition leaders and controlled democratic processes.

Tanzania is holding its general election on Wednesday against the backdrop of what the DA describes as rapidly intensifying repression and the exclusion of opposition candidates.

DA spokesperson on International Relations and Cooperation Ryan Smith said the party condemned the unlawful imprisonment of Tanzania’s opposition leader Tundu Lissu of the Party for Democracy and Progress on trumped-up charges of treason by the Tanzanian government.

As a result, President Samia Suluhu Hassan is expected to win.

Smith said the detainment of Lissu, along with fellow Tanzanian opposition politician John Heche, marked an alarming trend of democratic backsliding that had become commonplace in the Southern African Development Community (SADC).

The DA wants President Cyril Ramaphosa and Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Ronald Lamola to speak out against the “flagrant attack” on democracy in Tanzania and the SADC at large.

“As we have seen in Zimbabwe, our failure to address the democratic backslide in our region ultimately becomes South Africa’s cross to bear. Anything less is an act of submission to the values which would destroy our Constitution and its internationally renowned liberal values along with it,” he said.

The DA said it was concerned about Ramaphosa and Lamola’s “silence” on the developments, arguing that it was indicative of the African National Congress’s “allegiance not to the principles of freedom and democracy enshrined in the Constitution, but to the African brotherhood of despots which continues to hold Southern African nations hostage to satiate their own greed and desire for power beyond the confines of the rule of law”.

Smith said Ramaphosa and Lamola continued to spuriously state publicly that South Africa’s foreign policy was underpinned by the values of freedom, democracy, and human rights outlined in the Constitution of the republic.

“Their words ring hollow as they continue to tacitly endorse and celebrate their SADC counterparts who continue to trample on democracy and silence the voices of their people to prolong the tyranny of African liberation movements turned dictatorships,” he said.

Smith pointed out that South Africa’s pursuit of the African Continental Free Trade Area was stillborn if liberal democracy and government stability and transparency were not upheld as a vital framework around which regional African economies could develop and integrate.

“It is not in South Africa’s national interest to be surrounded by non-democratic and illiberal nation States which threaten our social and economic stability in turn,” he said.