Tanzania Politics under. Democracy, a History. Redirecting the act of Governance. Speaking of broad presidential powers under the Republican Constitution of 1962, Julius Nyerere, the first President of Tanzania wrote to the London Observer in 1963 that “[w]e cannot afford liberal checks and balances… Our constitution differs from the American system in that it enables the executive to function without being checked at every turn.” Nyerere spoke of his imperial presidency, where the executive, under the one party system, was virtually above all the other constitutional organs of the state and where fundamental freedoms were relegated to socialist objectives of economic development and building national unity. More than fifty years later, not much has changed. The legacy of an absolute presidency still constrains efforts to strengthen democracy and protect fundamental rights in Tanzania. Even though constitutional and political reforms in the 1990s instituted multiparty democracy and operationalised a constitutional bill of rights, proposals to curtail presidential powers were impossible to pass in the given political climate. As the constitutional review process of 2011 led to the adoption of the proposed constitution in October 2014, it is timely to reflect on the state of presidential power and its potential implications for democracy and fundamental freedoms in Tanzania