Activists project a message opposing the US’s oil-driven intervention in Venezuela, in Washington, January 8, 2026
THE “billionaires’ decade.” That is how charity Oxfam describes the 2020s, having published research pointing to the extreme — and accelerating — concentration of wealth in Britain and worldwide.
The stats alone are alarming — billionaires’ wealth grew 16 per cent in 2025, three times faster than the five-year average; in Britain, the richest 56 people own more than the poorest 27 million.
But the report goes further in pointing to the way the super rich are monopolising political power and distorting the political process, both by entering office and by controlling the media.
The administration of Donald Trump — himself a property magnate — in the United States is the most obvious example, with the close association of “tech bro” tycoons with the US government well known.
Several of these — Elon Musk and Peter Thiel being the most famous — are explicitly associated with far-right politics, and intend to use the march of digital surveillance technologies and artificial intelligence to further subordinate societies everywhere to corporate control.
US foreign policy has always served to enrich its capitalists — companies like Halliburton and Blackwater, as well of course as arms companies like Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, made a killing from the Iraq war — but is now more openly directed to resource theft and the personal enrichment of the Trump gang and its allies.
This we see in the Big Oil summit hosted by the US president directly after his kidnapping of the president of Venezuela, with demands for corporate access to Venezuelan oil forming part of the public rationale for the outrage.
We see it too in plans to ethnically cleanse the Gaza Strip and develop it as a Mediterranean resort, and in the creation of the so-called Board of Peace, permanent membership of which Trump has now made contingent on down payments of a billion dollars.
Sharp-eyed observers note that the new board’s charter makes no specific reference to Gaza and implies a far wider remit — “to promote stability, restore dependable and lawful governance, and secure enduring peace in areas affected or threatened by conflict” — and, with members including the head of the US-dominated World Bank and Trump’s own son-in-law Jared Kushner, may be intended to serve as a Washington-controlled alternative to the UN security council now the United States is increasingly hostile to the United Nations and the framework of international law around it.
Trump’s relations with “allies” rest on the same profit-grabbing logic. It’s why enriching US drug companies at the expense of our NHS formed a key part of his trade deal with Britain, and why British and European attempts to regulate the internet — dominated globally by US companies — draw threats of retaliation. It’s why he wants Greenland, where the extraction of energy and mineral resources is becoming more practical because of global warming.
Trump’s new world order will rest not on sovereign states acting, at least in theory, on behalf of their citizens but on undisguised corporate power. But Britain is on the same trajectory, and the interests of parasitical profiteers dominate British policy too. Only that can explain Labour’s refusal to act to bring water into public ownership in line with overwhelming majority opinion, or the stubborn persistence of wasteful outsourcing across our public services.
For the left, the great divide between the suffering public and the obscenely wealthy — the many and the few, to take the Corbyn-era slogan — needs to be the overarching narrative when we explain what is wrong with our society and how we change it.
It explains the fundamental continuity between this government and its predecessor — and can spike the guns of a far right that dances to the billionaires’ tune.
It makes the case for the expropriation of private wealth for the public good. Not just to fund services, but to protect democracy — overshadowed more than ever by the power of money.
Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn’t bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.
People attend a demonstration in support of taxing the super-rich in São Paulo, Brazil on July 10, 2025. (Photo by Miguel Schincariol/AFP via Getty Images)
“The choices we make in the coming years will determine whether the global economy continues down a path of extreme concentration or moves toward shared prosperity.”
A landmark report on global inequality published Wednesday shows that the chasm between the richest slice of humanity and everyone else continued to expand this year, leaving the top 0.001%—fewer than 60,000 multimillionaires—with three times more wealth than the poorest half of the world’s population combined.
The global wealth gap has become so staggering, and its impact on economies and democratic institutions so corrosive, that policymakers should treat it as an emergency, argues the third edition of the World Inequality Report, a comprehensive analysis that draws on the work of hundreds of scholars worldwide. Ricardo Gómez-Carrera, a researcher at the World Inequality Lab, is the report’s lead author.
“Inequality has long been a defining feature of the global economy, but by 2025, it has reached levels that demand urgent attention,” reads the new report. “The benefits of globalization and economic growth have flowed disproportionately to a small minority, while much of the world’s population still face difficulties in achieving stable livelihoods. These divides are not inevitable. They are the outcome of political and institutional choices.”
The richest 10% of the global population, according to the latest data, own three-quarters of the world’s wealth and capture more income than the rest of humanity. Within most countries, it is rare for the bottom 50% to control more than 5% of national wealth.
“This concentration is not only persistent, but it is also accelerating,” the report observes. “Since the 1990s, the wealth of billionaires and centimillionaires has grown at approximately 8% annually, nearly twice the rate of growth experienced by the bottom half of the population. The poorest have made modest gains, but these are overshadowed by the extraordinary accumulation at the very top.”
“The result,” the report adds, “is a world in which a tiny minority commands unprecedented financial power, while billions remain excluded from even basic economic stability.”
The report comes as the world’s richest and most powerful nation, led by President Donald Trump, abandons international cooperation on climate and taxation and works to supercharge inequality by slashing domestic and foreign aid programs while delivering massive handouts to the wealthiest Americans.
Jayati Ghosh, a member of the G20 Extraordinary Committee of Independent Experts on Global Inequality and co-author of the forward to the new report, said in a statement that “we live in a system where resources extracted from labor and nature in low-income countries continue to sustain the prosperity and the unsustainable lifestyle of people in high-income economies and rich elites across countries.”
“These patterns are not accidents of markets,” said Ghosh. “They reflect the legacy of history and the functioning of institutions, regulations and policies—all of which are related to unequal power relations that have yet to be rebalanced.”
Reversing the decadeslong trend of exploding inequality will require the political will to pursue obvious solutions, including fair taxation of the mega-rich and bold investments in social programs and climate action, which is disproportionately fueled by the wealthy.
“The choices we make in the coming years,” the report says, “will determine whether the global economy continues down a path of extreme concentration or moves toward shared prosperity.”
Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Progressive candidate Rixi Moncada voting on Sunday, November 30, 2025. Photo: LIBRE Party / X
The US escalation of interventionist discourse regarding the polls in Honduras reveals the deep-seated fear of the victory of a progressive project in the Americas
The people of Honduras are voting in general elections to decide their next president, 128 deputies to the Honduran Congress, 20 deputies to the Central American Parliament, 298 mayors, and more than 2,000 councilors. Most of the attention has been focused on the presidential election, which will be decided in a single round. The three frontrunners for the presidency are progressive candidate for the LIBRE Party Rixi Moncada; right-wing Liberal Party candidate Salvador Nasralla; and far-right National Party candidate Nasry Asfura.
Six million Hondurans are eligible to vote in these general elections which have become the subject of debate of far-right figures from across the world, who are all warning about the possible “triumph of communism” in the Central American country. However, the external intervention in the elections has gone beyond comments on social media about the “danger” represented by progressive candidate from the LIBRE Party Rixi Moncada.
In a move shocking many, on Friday, November 28, US President Donald Trump announced that he would pardon former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández (JOH), adding, “according to many people that I greatly respect, [he has been] treated very harshly and unfairly. This cannot be allowed to happen, especially now, after Tito Asfura wins the Election, when Honduras will be on its way to Great Political and Financial Success.” In the message, Trump reiterated his support to National Party candidate Tito Asfura and declared that if he doesn’t win the US will “not be throwing good money after bad, because a wrong Leader can only bring catastrophic results to a country.”
Is communism really on the ballot? Why has the electoral process in the Central American country become a focus of the right wing internationally? Peoples Dispatch spoke to Camilo Bermúdez, the Director of Strategic Litigation and Management of the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH) about what is at stake in this political moment in the country.
Beyond who, what is on the ballot?
As previously mentioned, the candidates polling the highest ahead of the elections are Rixi Moncada, Salvador Nasralla, and Tito Asfura. For Bermúdez, while there are three candidates, there are “clearly two political models in confrontation”.
He explains that at the base of the political project represented by LIBRE veteran Moncada is “a strong criticism of the economic system and the economic elites in Honduras”. Moncada, he emphasizes, “has been very open in criticizing, from her positions as Finance Minister and other roles she has held, the control of the country’s economy by ten families and about 26 economic groups that have [historically] controlled the main sectors of the country’s economy. She has criticized this control, the lack of tax justice, and the lack of economic democratization.” In addition to her critiques of the neoliberal economic model dominant in the country, Rixi represents “a project of continuity with President Xiomara Castro’s social program and LIBRE Party, who are heirs to the resistance and opposition to the 2009 coup d’état that overthrew Manuel Zelaya Rosales.” It is a progressive project which calls itself socialist, but mired with “many internal contradictions due to the same contradictions in LIBRE Party’s composition,” Bermúdez adds.
The other model is represented by Asfura and Nasralla, who, despite running with the country’s historically opposed parties, represent a very similar political project. This is “a traditional project of the Honduran right” which is one aligned with “private enterprise, aligned with the interests of large landowners, of large national and international corporations, and that seeks the approval of the United States Embassy in order to govern.”
The difference, Bermúdez underscores, is that Asfura is “more related to the post-coup regime, an authoritarian regime very linked to organized crime and drug trafficking. He’s from the party of President Juan Orlando, who was extradited and sentenced to 45 years in prison in the United States for drug trafficking.”
Meanwhile, Nasralla, while maintaining similar political and economic proposals to the National Party, has attempted to distance himself from organized crime, declaring himself “clean” and corruption free. Nevertheless, the COPINH organizer warns, “the political support and backing for candidate Nasralla clearly also comes from that background – for example, from business groups, corporate media groups, and also financial companies like Banco FICOHSA, which is linked to the assassination of Berta Cáceres and also to money laundering from drug trafficking.”
Under the National Party rule following the coup d’état in 2009, an all out neoliberal offensive was unleashed in the country to accelerate natural resource plundering in Indigenous and Garifuna territories, establish Special Economic Development Zones ( ZEDES) to favor international investment with the suspension of labor laws, and the privatization of state companies. Rolling back this model, which caused environmental devastation, social conflict, territorial breakdown, deep inequality and poverty, and the extraction of the country’s wealth by national and international private companies, was a cornerstone of Xiomara Castro’s 2021 campaign.
This effort has been the basis of much of the opposition she faces both by Honduran elites and international capital that, for years, had heeded the call of “Honduras is open for business” and profited immensely from the country’s cheap labor, natural resources, and relaxed labor and environmental laws. In 2017, the National Party committed outright electoral fraud, recognized even by the Organization of American States (OAS) in order to maintain their grasp on power.
Is fraud or non-recognition on the table?
The 2017 fraud is fresh in people’s minds, not only for how US President Donald Trump provided the necessary stamp of approval to his ally Juan Orlando Hernández to consolidate the fraud, but also how the event provoked mass protests and unrest across the country and the death of at least 35 protesters, with dozens imprisoned.
This time around, the possibilities for the right wing to influence the outcome of the polls are different. The leading scenario that analysts predict is an attempt by the right wing to orchestrate a non-recognition in the case of Moncada’s victory, which for Bermúdez has the sole purpose of “triggering a process of instability”. Suspicion has already been raised both within Honduras and outside the country by right-wing actors questioning the effectiveness of the electoral system for the mere reason that there is a progressive government in office. Some analysts warn that right-wing media and figures may seek to heavily promote exit polls and any results from the rapid count that would contradict the official results that will take some time to be released. Some may remember this formula from the 2019 Bolivian elections which were followed by a month of right-wing street protest against “fraud”, and ended with the overthrow of Evo Morales. Last year’s elections in Venezuela, saw a similar formula implemented: right-wing fraud allegations, echoed by the United States, which fed and fomented violent street protests a day after the elections, yet popular mobilization by Chavismo was successful in defeating this coup attempt.
Bermúdez explains, “We believe this could be what the opposition wants, with the backing of the United States government: a process of instability in which they seek to delegitimize Rixi Moncada’s victory and try to apply pressures similar to what has happened in Venezuela, trying to destabilize a progressive project, a possible progressive government project like Rixi Moncada’s.”
In this scenario, the COPINH organizer underlines, “The position taken by the Honduran Armed Forces will be very important, since they are supposedly called upon to defend the electoral process – but in 2009 they carried out the coup.” Notably though, “the current Xiomara Castro government has had a very close relationship with this Armed Forces sector.”
Bermúdez highlights that the streets will become the most important scenario in coming days if actions of non-recognition and attempts to destabilize the country after a Rixi Moncada victory go forward. In this case, “the Libre Party militants will take to the streets, because this is a militancy that emerged in the streets, from the post-coup resistance movement, and it’s a party and militancy accustomed to social protest. So we foresee that faced with any such action, there will also be a response of popular mobilization.”
“What will be very important won’t really be election day itself, because there isn’t an immediate vote counting system – moreover, it has been denounced as a system that could have been hacked or is unreliable. So the results won’t come on the same day; results will possibly come the following day, a couple of days later, after all the tally sheets from the polling stations have arrived at a location for manual counting of each sheet, and then that becomes the official result,” Bermúdez emphasizes.
US interference
A constant in Honduran politics, has been the outsized role of the United States leaders, in shaping the country’s present and future. Yet, Trump’s recent statements and actions have gone a step further.
“There is great concern in the country about that statement from the United States government…Obviously the US Embassy and State Department have great influence in Central American countries and great influence in Honduras, but we’ve never seen such blatant and interventionist pronouncements, which demonstrate the nature of US government policy,” Bermúdez remarks.
This in reference to the pardon of JOH couched in the endorsement of National Party candidate Asfura.
JOH was arrested on February 16, 2022, by Honduran police following an extradition request from the United States for conspiring to traffic drugs in the US. Two months later, on April 21, 2022, Hernández was extradited to the United States. In June 2024, JOH was sentenced by a US judge to 45 years in prison for the crime of exporting more than 400 tons of cocaine to the United States and for the possession of “destructive devices”. At the time, the judge, Kevin Castel, called Hernández “a two-faced politician” because, on the one hand, he claimed to fight drug trafficking in his country, while, on the other hand, he supported the drug cartels. Prosecutors alleged that the former president built a “Narco-State” in which he personally received millions of dollars in bribes from drug traffickers.
Bermúdez believes that the explicit support from Trump and other US officials for Asfura, and the explicit rejection of Moncada and LIBRE, “has to do with an international campaign to fight against any kind of progressive perspective in Latin America, under the outdated discourse of communism linked to a supposed fight against drug trafficking and what they call ‘narcoterrorism.’” “Narcoterrorism”, he explains, “is the policy the United States government develops to attack Venezuela, to enter into deep contradiction with the governments of Colombia, Mexico, and Brazil. So we believe this fits within this dynamic of the growth of the right-wing that we are seeing internationally, of these authoritarian and extreme-right discourses that seek shelter in this narcoterrorism discourse, attempting to link it to the revolutionary processes in Venezuela and Cuba.”
Yet, the outright violations of Honduran sovereignty and rule of law by the US president and their potential to sow chaos, are also telling. Bermúdez said, such actions show “the fear they have of a progressive project that could be executed by candidate Rixi Moncada, and also the expectation and perspective they have that she could be the candidate favored by the popular vote – because if that weren’t the case, we believe they wouldn’t take such a decisive, forceful, and strong position like that of the US president, who, it goes without saying, very possibly doesn’t even know where Honduras is, yet is speaking in favor of one of the candidates.”
Bermúdez states that at the end of the day, “no matter how blatant this interference is and no matter how powerful Donald Trump’s government is, the decision lies with the people. And I think it’s also a call to awareness for the people to take the reins and make decisions about their future.”
Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn’t bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.
Protesters gather at First Ward Park for the ‘No Border Patrol In Charlotte’ rally to raise their voices for the immigrant community and against US Border Patrol activity in Charlotte, North Carolina on November 15, 2025. (Photo by Peter Zay/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“In a scenario where this administration is trying to sow division,” said one local organizer, “we see an organic movement of community members trying to provide support and assistance.”
In Charlotte, North Carolina, the Trump administration’s latest anti-immigration crackdown garnered headlines over the weekend both for “how inhumane and aggressive” the operations by US Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement were, as one journalist said, and the action that local residents immediately took to protect their neighbors from arrests and raids.
“I just started recording them,” said Rheba Hamilton after federal agents pulled up to her house in a vehicle and intimidated two Latino men who were decorating the trees in her yard. “They left.”
As the agents pulled away, she yelled, “Get the hell out of my yard, you assholes!”
Hamilton, who toldThe New York Timesshe had tried to warn the workers against hanging the Christmas lights due to the deportation operations, said it was “terrifying” to see Border Patrol agents on her property.
“I was concerned about this happening,” Hamilton said. “We’ve got great people here… Nobody’s going to regret moving here if you come here with the right kind of heart, and that includes our immigrants.”
Hamilton filmed the Border Patrol agents after North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein, a Democrat, called on Charlotte residents to “bear witness” to ICE arrests and raids at businesses and homes as the Trump administration launched “Operation Charlotte’s Web”—the latest stop on its nationwide attack on immigrant and Latino communities, which has also unfolded in Chicago and other cities.
“If you see any inappropriate behavior, use your phones to record and notify local law enforcement, who will continue to keep our communities safe long after these federal agents leave,” said Stein last week.
Operation Charlotte’s Web began as the administration released the names of more than 600 people detained in the Chicago area whose arrests may have violated a court order, and revealed that just 16 of them had an alleged criminal history.
More than 3,000 people in all have been arrested in the Chicago area since ICE and other federal agencies began “Operation Midway Blitz” in September.
Border Patrol Commander-at-large Gregory Bovino reported that at least 81 people were arrested in Charlotte by the end of the weekend, with the mass arrests completed in about five hours, and claimed that those who were taken into custody had “significant criminal and immigration history”—similar claims that have been made about the operations in Chicago.
The local advocacy group Siembra NC said “the most immigrants were arrested in a single day in state history” on Saturday.
The community development group CharlotteEast told the Guardianon Sunday that it had received an “overwhelming” number of reports from residents about Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents in the area, including at places that were previously protected under the Biden administration from immigration enforcement.
“The past two hours we’ve received countless reports of CBP activity at churches, apartment complexes, and a hardware store,” executive director Greg Asciutto told the outlet.
The Charlotte Observerreported that congregants at a church in east Charlotte “scattered into the woods” after masked federal agents arrived and detained a member while the church community was doing yard work.
“The agents asked no questions and showed no identification before taking one man away, whose wife and child were inside at the time,” the newspaper reported. “Inside the church, women and children sobbed as they wondered whether their loved ones had been taken.”
Sam Stein of the Bulwarknoted that community members “got the heads up and ran to the woods to confront ICE agents with, among other things, deafening whistles. ICE responded by threatening to throw gas canisters at them.”
Advocates handed out whistles—like those used by many in Chicago in recent weeks—to local residents on Sunday, and hundreds of people packed a training session on Friday night where Carolina Migrant Network advised them on banding together to stop ICE from raiding their communities.
Charlotte NC: Activists are handing out whistles to community members to alert their neighbors to the presence of ICE and Federal Agents pic.twitter.com/0lranCzuip
A grocery store, Compare Foods, also announced it would be offering free delivery to keep people from having to venture out while federal agents are in the city.
“For all those customers who don’t feel comfortable coming to the store in person, they can shop online, and then we will have it delivered through our delivery service to their home,” said Omar Jorge, owner of the local chain.
Manolo’s Bakery, meanwhile, closed over the weekend for the first time in its 28-year history, with owner Manolo Betancur telling the Observer, “We need to protect our families [from] family separation.”
Stefania Arteaga of the Carolina Migrant Network told the Guardian that the grassroots weekend efforts show “allies are learning how to help their neighbors” in the city.
“In a scenario where this administration is trying to sow division,” she said, “we see an organic movement of community members trying to provide support and assistance.”
Daniel Nichanian of Bolts magazine said Charlotte—which is not near a US border—likely was chosen as President Donald Trump’s latest target because of a “war” between ICE and Mecklenburg County Sheriff Gary McFadden, going back to 2018 when McFadden was among five Black Democrats who won sheriff elections in the state on the promise of ending cooperation with ICE.
The agency targeted Charlotte two years later, posting billboards that showed mugshots of immigrants arrested in the area.
As with other cities Trump has targeted for mass deportation operations this year, crime has been falling in Charlotte, with an 8% decrease in overall crime last month compared to a year prior, and a 20% reduction in violent crimes.
Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn’t bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.
President Samia Suluhu Hassan is sworn in after re-election in Tanzania. Photo: X
Tanzania’s disputed elections, already clouded by credibility concerns, ended with President Samia Suluhu declared the winner. Authorities have intensified arrests and crackdowns, while opposition leaders claim that thousands were killed during post-election protests.
The October 29, 2025, presidential elections in Tanzania plunged the country into its deepest political crisis in decades. President Samia Suluhu Hassan was declared the winner with an overwhelming 97.66% of the vote, a result widely denounced as fraudulent and surrounded by an atmosphere of repression, violence, and systematic silencing of dissent.
In the months leading up to the polls, opposition parties were systematically harassed. Rallies were disrupted, candidates were denied registration, and media outlets critical of the government faced suspension. The banning of CHADEMA leader Tundu Lissu from contesting and the arrest of dozens of party members prefigured an electoral process tightly controlled by the state apparatus.
In dialogue with Peoples Dispatch, Muhemsi says, this time round, the popular dissatisfaction was due to the issue of forced disappearances, abductions, as well as the “unfair” detention of some key opposition party leaders, especially Tundu Antipas Lissu, who is being charged with treason. His trial has been going on for months.
A nation under siege
What followed the disputed poll was a wave of protests in Tanzania’s recent history. Demonstrations erupted across major cities, from Dar es Salaam to Arusha and Mwanza, as citizens rejected the results. The government’s response was brutal. Under a nationwide curfew and a total internet shutdown, security forces unleashed a wave of violence against protestors. The opposition claims that thousands were killed or have disappeared, though independent verification remains impossible. Families continue to search for missing relatives, and many speak of a climate of fear and enforced disappearance.
Muhemsi described how Tanzanians have long been told that “no one would dare take to the streets”. The ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM; “Party of the Revolution”), he said, has relied on the myth of Tanzania being an “Island of Peace” to suppress dissent. “Religious leaders were co-opted into spreading this ‘peace’ gospel, many of their events were literally organized if not funded by the state.”
Opposition leaders detained
In the aftermath, the government has intensified its repression. Hundreds of youth activists have been charged, and opposition leaders continue to face persecution. CHADEMA’s deputy secretary-general, Amani Golugwa, was arrested on November 8 and charged with treason, joining his party leader Tundu Lissu, who was barred from participating in the election and remains imprisoned. Other activists, youths, and human rights defenders have been detained under vague accusations of incitement and subversion.
The president’s inauguration, held behind closed doors, only deepened public outrage at a process that lacks legitimacy. A ceremony, symbolic of a government increasingly disconnected from its people.
Regional and continental reactions
Initially, regional and international reactions followed the pattern of complicity and silence that has long accompanied authoritarian consolidation in Africa. The African Union (AU) was quick to congratulate President Suluhu on her victory, a move that provoked widespread condemnation across the continent. In a reversal, the AU later, after sustained criticism, acknowledged that the elections “had not met the threshold of free and fair democratic values.”
In a statement, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights expressed “deep concern” over the situation, citing grave violations of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, which Tanzania ratified in 1984. The Commission condemned reports of mass killings, arbitrary arrests, and the use of live ammunition against peaceful demonstrators, urging the government to “de-escalate the prevailing situation” and investigate the alleged atrocities.
The Commission further called on Tanzania to sign and ratify the “African Charter on Democracy, Elections, and Governance”, emphasizing the need for regular, transparent, and impartial elections – an implicit rebuke of the current regime’s conduct.
Similarly, the Southern African Development Community (SADC), through its Electoral Observation Mission, issued a preliminary report on November 3 stating that the poll fell short of democratic standards. The mission detailed harassment of its own observers, including an incident in Tanga, where security officers seized passports, interrogated monitors, and deleted photographs.
The ongoing repression not only erodes Tanzania’s internal democratic fabric but also threatens to destabilize the wider East African region, where social unrest and economic inequality have become combustible forces.
But despite these condemnations, no tangible measures have followed. The crisis in Tanzania exposes the limits of regional institutions, whose dependence on member states makes them reluctant to call out offending regimes. In effect, regional diplomacy has become the velvet glove around the iron fist of repression, completely detached from the aspirations of the majority of African people.
For Tanzanians, the current moment is one of mourning and resistance. As families continue searching for missing loved ones and opposition leaders and arrested protesters languish in detention. The overwhelming margin of victory – 97.66% – does not symbolize national unity but its absence. Muhmesi concludes that “CCM’s tragedy isn’t just staying in power; it’s that it long abandoned the task of leading Tanzanians away from capitalism. Until we face that truth, there can be no real democracy, no good constitution, because capitalism itself is the constitution of our suffering.”
Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.
Activists project a message opposing the US’s oil-driven intervention in Venezuela, in Washington, January 8, 2026
