Museveni steamrolls to a sixth term
Longtime Ugandan leader Yoweri Museveni won a sixth term as president with about 60 per cent of the vote, according to election results yesterday, in an election that highlighted the many tactics used for decades to steamroll Museveni’s opponents.
While voting on Friday was largely peaceful and orderly, the campaign period displayed the architecture of Museveni’s 35-year grip on power: relentless and violent crackdowns, widespread arrests, and attempts to bar journalists and independent observers.
His ability to keep deploying them, election after election, also has been indirectly bolstered by the billion-plus dollars his government receives annually in Western aid money, primarily from the United States and US-backed lending institutions.
The State Department’s assistant secretary for African affairs, Tibor Nagy, tweeted on Saturday that Uganda’s election was ‘‘fundamentally flawed’’ and that the United States was assessing options to respond. But, to many critics of Museveni, such statements are undercut by the US aid money – totaling US$936 million (NZ$1.3 billion) in 2019 – that just keeps coming.
‘‘The international donors, and particularly the United States, are the biggest enablers of Museveni’s authoritarianism,’’ said Godber Tumushabe, a Ugandan lawyer and activist. ‘‘They underwrite all of Uganda’s public services – health, infrastructure, etcetera – which allows Museveni to spend massively on a security apparatus and a network of patronage.’’
‘‘Aid helps Ugandans,’’ he added, ‘‘but destroys citizen engagement.’’
That security apparatus was on full display on Saturday at the home of Museveni’s main challenger, 38-year-old singer turned politician Robert Kyagulanyi, better known by his stage name, Bobi Wine. Wine received a third of the vote from the official tally, but struggled to appeal to his supporters to either accept or reject the results because of a nationwide Internet shutdown since late Wednesday.
Dozens of heavily armed soldiers surrounded his residence, leaving him effectively under house arrest. They beat a security guard and pointed their weapons at Wine’s wife.
Speaking to reporters in his yard, Wine said his phone was blocked from making calls and that he had sent his children out of the country ‘‘to avoid them witnessing this humiliation.’’
– Washington Post