{UAH} AFTER 30 YEARS IN OFFICE WHY QUIT NOW?

Yoweri Museveni wins a fifth term as Uganda’s president

After 30 years in office, why quit now?

Feb 21st 2016 | Middle East and Africa

 

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THERE was no celebrating on the streets of Kampala on the evening of February 20th after President Yoweri Museveni won a fifth term in office. The result was, after all, inevitable. It was an uneasy calm though. Gun-toting police and soldiers dominated the centre of the capital. Opposition leader Kizza Besigye denounced the results from the confines of house arrest; violently suppressed protests usually follow his losses (this is Mr Besigye’s fourth defeat in a presidential election).

Mr Museveni trounced his competitors with 60.8% of the vote, less than the 68% share he won in 2011 but still comfortably ahead of his nearest rival, who scored 35.4%. It was also better than the 59% “the Leopard” won in 2006, despite observers predicting that this would be his hardest election yet. Amama Mbabazi, a former prime minister who broke with his former boss in 2014 after the latter chose power over a pension, was once seen as a contender. He surprised by polling a paltry 1.4%.

Ugandans have plenty of reasons to be unhappy with the electoral process. Social media and mobile-money services were blocked when voting began on Thursday (and were still offline when this article was published), although people quickly turned to Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) to get online. Ballot papers didn’t arrive at many polling stations in Kampala and the neighbouring district of Wakiso until well into the afternoon. Voters, many of whom had waited in the burning sun since 7am, were calm but angry. It is a tactic to disenfranchise people in the opposition’s urban strongholds, said one man who didn’t want to be named.

In some areas voting was extended to Friday, when the public count was already under way. Turnout unsurprisingly took a hit. It was 63.5% nationally, but only 46% in Kampala and 50.7% in Wakiso, which plumped for Mr Besigye by 65.8% and 59.8% respectively. Steven, a 40-year-old boda (motorbike taxi) driver, said he hadn’t been able to cast his ballot as he couldn’t afford the 10,000 shilling ($3) petrol to drive from central Kampala where he works to his polling station for a second time in two days. “It’s a waste of money,” he said of the entire election.

Supporters of the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), Mr Besigye’s party, say the result has been “stolen”. Mr Besigye was arrested on Friday at the FDC headquarters by police firing tear gas, before he could hold a press conference about the results. As the Electoral Commission declared Mr Museveni winner on Saturday afternoon the FDC said their man had just over half of the vote from around 10% of polling stations. It also tweeted photos purporting to show ballots that had been pre-ticked in favour of the incumbent (allegations of which led police to fire teargas at angry crowds and stop voting in one area).

But EU election observers said they saw nothing of the sort. In Masaka, a small city two hours west of Kampala that voted for Mr Besigye, your correspondent witnessed votes being counted out loud in the open air by torchlight. Each polling station’s result was then announced in a tally centre, albeit slowly. Although the last one was read out on Friday morning, the final result for the district was not announced until 8pm that evening.

The EU mission tactfully refused to say whether it deemed the election “free and fair”, but it did criticise the less-than-level playing field, noting that state funds were splurged on supporting Mr Museveni’s National Resistance Movement and the state regulator shuttered critical 13 radio stations in January. Former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, the head of the Commonwealth team of election observers, went further, saying the vote delays and other problems “seriously detracted from the fairness and credibility of the results”.

America also did not mince its words: “Delays in the delivery of voting materials, reports of pre-checked ballots and vote buying, ongoing blockage of social media sites, and excessive use of force by the police, collectively undermine the integrity of the electoral process,” the State Department said.

Would Mr Museveni have won a fair vote? No one knows. He is more popular in rural areas, where 84% of Ugandans live, than in cities, where the young are eager for change. Older voters credit him with having brought peace to the country, after the ruinously bloodthirsty regimes of Milton Obote and Idi Amin, whom he helped to overthrow. He has been in charge since 1986, so most Ugandans cannot remember another president. And if, as expected, he has the constitution changed to let presidents continue in office after the age of 75, he may be in charge for a while longer.

 

 

EM

On the 49^th Parallel          

                 Thé Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni, Ssabassajja and Dr. Kiiza Besigye, Uganda is in anarchy"
                    Kuungana Mulindwa Mawasiliano Kikundi
"Pamoja na Yoweri Museveni, Ssabassajja na Dk. Kiiza Besigye, Uganda ni katika machafuko"