{UAH} The Man Who Overstayed | Uganda’s long-time president is certain to win the upcoming election — again. So why is everyone campaigning so hard?|Foreign Policy

And yet, if the result is a foregone conclusion, and all of the parties know this, why is the campaigning so heated? The candidates have thrown themselves into the race with genuine zeal. 

So even though most Ugandans don't believe that Museveni will lose, many are still following the doings around the election with rapt attention. The whole spectacle bears a remarkable resemblance to genuine political competition. How do we explain this seeming paradox?

To some extent, the simplest answer is that the ruling party suffers from the kind of paranoia common to dominant parties around the world, and will not allow itself to relax despite its public statements that it expects to win by a landslide. 

Yet that's only part of the explanation. The reality is that this election is less about the present than the future. The opposition candidates are competing not just against the president, but also against each other, jockeying for pole position in anticipation of the day he stands down. Even powerful members of Museveni's own party are doing their best to prepare for the post-Museveni era. In this sense the 2016 election represents a dress rehearsal for the power struggle to come.

Uganda is currently witnessing two different versions of this struggle at the same time, and it is the combination of these contending forces that explains the intensity of the competition in an election that few believe the opposition can win. On one level, opposition leaders are competing for supremacy in the hope of benefitting from future conflict within the ruling party. Facing an unmovable rock and an unpredictable political future, Museveni's rivals must compete for the status of heir apparent. Both are unlikely to win power on their own in the short term, but could emerge as presidential favorites if they are able to draw support from the factions that might emerge from a possible collapse of the ruling party — a prospect that, as we will explain below, is by no means remote.

http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/02/16/the-man-who-overstayed-uganda-museveni/?

Sincerely,

Brian M. Kwesiga