Uganda Election: Sevo vs Wine, Round Two

Your Saturday deep dive

Hello everyone,

I lived in Uganda for a time in the early 2010s and was there for a stormy presidential election in 2011 and its particularly chaotic aftermath.

By that stage, President Yoweri Museveni had ruled for 25 years after coming to power as leader of a rebel movement in 1986.

“The problem of Africa in general and Uganda in particular is not the people but leaders who want to overstay in power,” he said when he took office, in a quote that has now gained infamy given he remains the country’s leader.

As you’ll have gathered, the now 81-year-old won that 2011 election and I watched at close quarters as opposition-led protests gripped the capital Kampala for months afterwards when opposition parties rejected the results.

My colleague Justin Dralaze and I watch as the military arrives to confront a group of protesters in Kampala, 2011.

Museveni’s main rival, Kizza Besigye, who had by then lost three presidential elections in a row, was detained again and again, sometimes brutally. I was on scene for several of those arrests and will never forget one particularly vicious attack on the veteran politician and his bodyguards during which he was drenched in so much tear gas that he was almost permanently blinded.

I’m sorry to say, little has changed since.

Besigye has recently stepped back, but a new threat to Museveni emerged over the last decade: a 43-year-old rapper-turned-politician named Bobi Wine.

And the government’s response? Well, he’s been given the Besigye treatment.

In the run-up to the 2021 elections, at least 54 people were killed during protests against one of Wine’s many arrests and thousands were detained.

We’re now just over a month away from the next election, to be held on January 15th, and the U.N. this week slammed what it called an intensifying crackdown on the opposition and the media as polling day approaches.

So, it seems like a good time for a Proximities Q&A.

Until next Saturday,

Barry.

PS: Apologies this is a day late. An infection has set me back this week.

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How has Museveni stayed in power for so long?

It’s important not to reduce it just to repression or unfair elections. The avuncular Museveni, who supporters affectionately refer to as Sevo, was hugely popular for years and he is still popular with some today.

When asking Ugandans why they supported him, one thing I frequently heard was that he brought peace to a country that had for years been hammered by war. And that’s true. While there have been conflicts and rebel groups have gone up against him (Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army may be the one you’re most familiar with), Museveni has governed over an era of unprecedented stability.

Even some young loyalists, who have never known any other leader, often cite a peace dividend, perhaps made grateful by the war stories of their grandparents.

Patronage is another big one. Museveni’s National Resistance Movement party (NRM) splashes the cash to keep people onside and that spending soars as elections near. Government jobs are offered, development programs are leveraged and backing the right party can be key to a village’s prosperity.

And, as mentioned in my introduction, repression and violence are key. In fact, I would argue they have become the most important means of keeping the ageing Museveni in power as a youthful population, angry about a lack of opportunities, fuels the rise of their own lightning rod leaders such as Bobi Wine.

Realistically, what chance does Wine have?