Tanzania votes for president amid fears of violence, fraud

Voters in Tanzania are going to the polls on Wednesday for a presidential election that the opposition warns is already deeply compromised by manipulation and deadly violence. “My life is in danger,” the chairman of one of the East African nation’s top opposition parties, Freeman Mbowe of CHADEMA, tweeted early in the morning, asserting that “heavily armed gangsters” protected by police had raided his hotel and seized two of his security guards. Tanzania, once praised for its relative peace and its peacemaking efforts in Africa, has become a human rights crisis as diplomats, the United Nations human rights office and others say the government under President John Magufuli has stifled media, civil society and opposition voices.