The years 2015, 2016 and 2017 are going to be critical for the East African Community. Tanzanians will get a new president.

In Burundi, Uganda and Rwanda things are not so clear as to whether they will get “new governments” rather than “new presidents.” In Tanzania, it is absolutely certain that, come rain or shine, dead or alive, Jakaya Kikwete will be leaving office in 2015. In Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda, the question of whether or not the incumbent will step down elicits different degrees of certainty and doubt.

Let us begin with Burundi. There, the ruling party, CNDD-FDD, has already declared that Pierre Nkurunziza will be contesting. It is often said that in Africa, incumbents lose elections only by accident. For that reason, and because of what some say is mass support from the country’s rural masses, some are inclined to believe that, should he be in the contest, Nkurunziza will indeed succeed himself.

Before that, however, he will have to find his way around two hurdles, albeit hardly insurmountable ones: Resistance to his plans by a highly fractured and cash-strapped opposition, and a constitutional provision that could trip him.

The constitution allows for only two elected terms. For his first term, Nkurunziza was elected by parliament, for the second, by the population. Apparently he wants a second “popularly elected term.”

His opponents say it will be his third and, under the current Constitution, and the Arusha Peace Accord that ended the country’s last civil war, illegal. It is hardly guaranteed he will win the argument. Whatever the eventual outcome, those with a penchant for prediction are promising difficult times ahead.

In Uganda, a few months ago, MPs belonging to the ruling National Resistance Movement overstepped their limits and declared President Yoweri Museveni the party’s presidential candidate for 2016. Museveni, who leaves nothing to chance in these things, is not known to lose elections.

There are no term limits to fight over with opposition parties. And the parties are in no shape or form to excite the public or put up a good fight. For that reason, many believe he will carry on.

That, however, does not guarantee total certainty, as is the case with Kikwete. For one thing, no one knows what plans his creator nhas in store for him. Moreover, who knows, he could, pull a surprise by deciding he has had enough and heading for the village to look after his cows.

Rwanda presents an especially interesting case. President Kagame is on record: He has said, many times, that he intends to retire.
Also, nearly two years ago, he spoke to members of the ruling party, the Rwanda Patriotic Front, about “change that must happen” and the need for continuity. At the same time, there are instances when, in responding to the question of whether he will or will not go, he has been non-committal.

Has he changed his mind, or is he playing a joke on those, journalists especially, who won’t stop asking him the same question over and over again? Meanwhile, the RPF maintains a deafening silence on the matter, even as some other parties are said to be quietly pushing for the Constitution to be amended to remove the limit on presidential terms.

Conversations with Rwandans of all backgrounds and descriptions reveal a striking mix of clarity and confusion. On the one hand, there are those who worry about a future without him but would like to see him step down, if only so that he and Rwanda can preserve their dignity, he as a popular leader who set a precedent in Rwanda’s history, and Rwanda as a country that departed from what is fast becoming a common pattern of leaders not respecting constitutions.

On the other hand there are those who are just as persuaded by the “dignity” argument but who, nonetheless, would like him to stay on, if only to nurture into maturity the fragile institutions whose building he has championed and overseen over the years. What do they think he will do? That is a long story for another day.

For Tanzanians, even amid their certainty about where Kikwete is headed, conversations with sections of the elite reveal that they are also facing considerable uncertainty. First is the question of who is coming. The choice, it seems, is limited to a crop of what analysts claim are uninspiring CCM cadres. The opposition gets no mention.

In CCM, a former prime minister, Edward Lowassa, leads the pack. He is praised as “a man of action”, in sharp contrast to many of his rivals and the incumbent who apparently aren’t. For that reason, commentators say, he looks like the person Tanzania needs to propel it forward after a decade of unfulfilled hopes.

Nonetheless, there are “integrity issues” about him and his vast wealth. In a country where anger about corruption and a longing for effective leadership dominate public discourse, Tanzanians who used to be sure whom their next president would be, are today caught up in the same agonising as the rest of us, only months to the elections.

Frederick Golooba-Mutebi is a Kampala- and Kigali-based researcher and writer on politics and public affairs.

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