Politics
In many ways, last Saturday’s re-election of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni was a foregone conclusion. His three-decade rule had seemed assured of continuing despite allegations of bribery and intimidation by his party and alleged voting irregularities that led the United Nations, among other interested observers, to question the vote’s legitimacy.
Museveni garnered more than 60 percent of votes cast. Kizza Besigye, leader of the opposition party, the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), got about 35 percent. A landslide, yes, but was this really a mandate, as Museveni immediately claimed, to go on with business as usual in Kampala?
Consider that Besigye has now lost to Museveni in three consecutive elections and that, in the run-up to each, the challenger was suddenly hit with vile legal charges -- including rape -- that would later prove unsubstantial if not outright fabricated.
The rape charge was filed in 2006. Besigye was acquitted, as timing would have it, one month after Museveni won an unprecedented third term -- despite the fact that he had promised to respect Ugandan term limits and step down after two terms. Instead the president amended the constitution to allow him to run the country, essentially, for life.
In 2010, Besigye finally found himself free of charges of treason that had dogged him since 2006. Museveni, nonetheless, again swept to electoral victory in 2011.
And yet, in defeat, the irrepressible Besigye has earned the respect of so many fellow citizens that, this time, Museveni ordered him arrested four times in eight days, provoking, in part, a pre-election clash between police and Besigye supporters that left one person dead.
Besigye is refusing to back down from his accusation that the vote was rigged. He continues to point to, among other things, an Election Day social-media blackout and the alleged disabling of mobile money platforms, which suddenly prevented millions of potential voters from accessing their accounts.
“This can only be described as illegal collective punishment,” Besigye later said, “which is an offense under international law.”
Indeed, in the days before the ballots were cast, the nation’s police chief, Gen. Edward Kale Kayihura, openly declared “war” on opposition figures. And once the voting ended, Museveni himself menacingly vowed to deal with any “troublemakers” unhappy with the result.
Some observers have suggested that Museveni might have been toppled this time around had there been greater cooperation between Besigye and ex-Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi, who finished a distant third in the election. They had planned to field one candidate under a new party called The Democratic Alliance, but, unable to agree on who stood the better chance to win, they each decided to run individually, which only served to split their resources.
Still, as University of Oxford professor Nic Cheeseman, an expert on African politics, told Newsweek, the results, contrary to Museveni’s assertion, indicate that Ugandans are thirsting for a change at the top. The future, Cheeseman predicts, hinges on the opposition’s gaining ground -- and seats -- in parliamentary elections:
“If you want to see better legislation, better accountability, falling corruption, better economic policy, the challenge for Uganda is to get a more balanced parliament. When you’ve got a ruling party that is winning most of the seats in parliament, it can do what it wants in terms of allowing Museveni to stay as long as he wants.”
Problem is the ruling party, the National Resistance Movement, holds not only the power but also the budgetary purse strings. Consequently, if a village wants, say, infrastructure improvements, its leaders know better than to align themselves with the opposition.
Some observers, however, believe that conditions are ripe for a cohesive message from anti-Museveni factions to topple the strongman. They compare the situation to what’s going on in Venezuela, where the mandate of President Nicolás Maduro, installed as the late Hugo Chávez’s successor, has eroded under economic reverses, cabinet infighting and a united opposition ready for its close-up.
Their message to Besigye may well be that, in the down-and-dirty reality of Ugandan politics, there’s little time for licking one’s wounds. Although Besigye is now 0-for-3 in presidential contests, the fourth time might well be the charm. Or the fifth. Or . . .
