Pop star politician gives restless youth a voice
When Ugandan presidential candidate Bobi Wine addressed a crowd in the eastern town of Mbale on Thursday last week it was more like seeing a rock star in his pomp than an election campaign stop.
Blocked by security forces from reaching the centre of town, a thousands-strong crowd chanted and clapped at a decrepit sports ground when Wine, whose real name is Robert Kyagulanyi, clambered on top of a car and began a call and response.
‘‘People power,’’ he called out, dressed in a bulletproof vest and ballistic helmet.
‘‘Our power,’’ his jubilant supporters replied.
At home on any stage – be it a concert venue or car roof – the charismatic 38-year-old pop starturned-politician is proving to be an unexpectedly strong challenger to President Yoweri Museveni in polls set for this Thursday, local time.
But in scenes that have become emblematic of a bloody and chaotic eight-week campaign, as Wine’s convoy left Mbale they were engulfed in clouds of tear gas fired by police aiming to disrupt his programme for the day and disperse his eager fans.
Museveni himself came to power not in an election but at the head of a rebel army following a brutal civil war. The East African nation has never had a peaceful transfer of power since independence from Britain in 1962.
Long before he was elected to parliament in 2017 Wine was known as ‘‘his excellency, the ghetto president’’, a mark of respect for the former bad boy who grew up in one of the capital’s largest slums but matured into a thoughtful commentator on social ills and spread his word through lyrical Afrobeat music.
In the early days of his reign Museveni recognised the dangers of autocracy.
‘‘The problem of Africa in general and Uganda in particular is not the people but leaders who want to overstay in power,’’ he wrote in 1986.
Now, 35 years later, having gutted the constitution of term and age limits, Museveni is seeking another five years in office in what is increasingly likely to be a presidency for life for the 76-year-old who rules one of the world’s youngest populations.
In previous elections, US and EU observer missions have been highly critical of the process and the bias of the nominally independent Electoral Commission. Observer mission recommendations aimed at eliminating ballot stuffing and electronic vote rigging have never been implemented, leading analysts to conclude that the lack of a level playing field all but guarantees a win for Museveni.
‘‘I’m a musician, yo, who became a spokesperson of my generation . . . they felt represented through my lyrics,’’ Wine explained in an interview at his home outside the capital, Kampala.
‘‘More than 85 per cent of our population have never seen another president. General Museveni connects with over-75s and above. He’s a representation of history, I’m a representation of the future, and we demand the right to live our own lives, to make our own mistakes, to write our own story.’’