This paper present fresh field work data from three case studies carried out in May 2013 to January 2015 on to what extent the Tanzanian Local Government Reform Programmes (LGRP) 1996/2000-2013 has brought about more democratic decision making processes, and hence heralding a “local turn” of development. The main findings point to that even if the local government has well elaborated structures for governance and democratic participation from the sub-village/street to the district level, the outcomes of the LGRP on improving the democratic processes at the local level has been limited. The study examine to what extent various actors at various levels can exercise horizontal and vertical accountability. Our findings indicate that the local government reforms have inadequately changed the existing power relations, political elite interests and ideology of the political actors. Real power still lies in the hands of the ruling party elites at the National and District level and constrains power sharing at the Local Government Authority (LGA) levels and at the Ward, Village and Sub village level. The Local Government Reform has not provided adequate mechanisms, processes and Incentives to hold political elites and the duty bearers to account, neither vertically nor horizontally, at the different levels of local government. Power distribution has remained Top-Down with increasing conflict of interest between the Top and the Bottom. Local governance is inadequately addressing the existing competing interests e.g. personal versus public, party versus collective, local versus national. In addition, mediating competing claims over resources remains a challenge as the local government reforms have inadequately strengthened the governance system at the local levels. One of the largest constraints is the lack of awareness, information and capacity to process information by citizens, and elected members of the political structures. The Village and in particular the Sub-village structures have, however, a huge and underestimated potential, both as entry point in the political system, and as effective mechanisms for democratic governance.  However, this opportunity to make ta “local turn” appears to rather have turned to recentralisation