By Tom Oniro Elenyu In Kampala
The final official results of the dreaded do-or-die January 15 presidential and parliamentary polls in Uganda have returned Yoweri Museveni to the presidency for his seventh uninterrupted elective term; elongating his tenure in the coveted office to 45 years.
Having bombed his way into power on January 26, 1986 following a five-year protracted guerilla bush war, the military general now becomes Africa’s third surviving longest-serving leader in continental Africa.
Museveni now joins the league of Equatorial Guinea’s President Obiang Nguema Mbasogo; who has ruled the tiny West African country for 47 years after a successful military coup in 1979. Obiang, whose son is the current defense minister, is closely followed by yet another dinosaur President in 92-year-old Paul Biya who has presided over Cameroon in West Africa for a cool 44 years ago when he assumed the presidency from the post-independence leader Ahmadou Ahidjo in 1982. His eldest son, Frank Biya, is widely speculated to succeed him. Biya Snr won another term in October last year in widespread disputed election.
In Uganda, Museveni’s only son, Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba, the current Chief of Defense Forces and Senior Presidential Advisor on Special Operations, is widely expected to succeed his father soonest.
In a continent riddled with dinosaur presidents, Gabon’s then one-meter man, Omar Bongo died in office in 2009 after assuming power in 1967, and ruled the West African nation for 42 years. His son Ali Bongo then succeeded him in power there; only to be overthrown by his cousin Brice Oligui Nguema on August 30, 2023.
Libya’s former supreme brother leader Muammar Gaddafi got killed while in office by western-allied coalition forces on Thursday October 20, 2011. He had captured Libya in a 1969 coup. He ruled for 42 years.
In an election marred by failed Biometric Voter Verification Kits (BVVKs) and a five-day nationwide Internet shutdown, the chairperson of the statutory Electoral Commission declared the Octogenarian Museveni victor of the January 15 polls with 7.9 million votes in his favor or 71.65% of the total valid votes cast. His closest thorn in the thighs challenger, Robert Kyagulanyi; pop-star musician stage-named Bobi Wine bagged 2.7 million votes which represent 24.72% of the total valid votes cast. The other six fringe candidates trailed far much behind.
According to the EC, 21.6 million Ugandans had registered to vote, but only a paltry 11.3 million actually turned up to choose the president and their parliamentarians; translating into 52.50%.
“Many reasons have been cited for voter fatigue, including distrust in the electoral process, repeated elections where the same leadership remains in power, predictable outcomes [that ‘Museveni will always win’], heavy security deployments [with war-like armory] and limited voter education, among others,” Sunday Monitor, the sister publication of the critical independent Daily Monitor, decried in its January 18 editorial. “Besides being a danger to our young democracy in that it affects the legitimacy of elected leaders,” the paper opined, “it also results in the wastage of public resources. Hundreds of billions of Shillings [Uganda’s Legal Tender] are spent to organize an election of 21 million voters, only for half the number to turn up.”
The head of the African Union Delegation to the election, former Nigerian President, Goodluck Jonathan, tied the low voter turn out to the delayed process occasioned by the failed BVVKs. He added that the “presence of [heavily] armed [military and police] officers at polling centers intimidated voters”.
“Uganda has failed to conduct a controversy-free elections; one in which we do not need to deploy the military, military helicopters, [war] mambas with anti-aircraft guns; soldiers in covered [hooded] faces,” regretted Great Lakes region researcher and analyst, Dr Frederick Gulooba-Mutebi, in a January 17 local radio talk show in the capital, Kampala.
On polling day, military helicopters hovered all over skies of the capital, Kampala; fighter jets scared voters in Kampala as was reported in other opposition strongholds, including the eastern flank of the country.
“We deploy these disproportionate measures which are completely undesirable; causing fear. There’s that sense of fear that tends to cut across,” said the Foundation for Human Rights Initiative’s Executive Director, Dr Livingstone Sewanyana in the morning of January 17; right before final presidential results were released at 1605 hours.
The UN Human Rights Office, too, said the elections in Uganda were held under a climate of fear and repression.
“Aside from the blatant theft of the presidential election, these criminals have employed various fraudulent technology to usurp the will of the people in numerous constituencies across the country…,” Kyagulanyi alleged. As usual, election materials were delayed in opposition strongholds. Security personnel allegedly grabbed and ran away with declaration forms from certain polling agents.
“I don’t know why our friends in police and army don’t do what the law requires. There’s no good reason why police or army should not follow the law…but I think there’s a level of impunity on our part—that ‘after all, I’m the commander; what are you going to do’,” a moderate reasoning from the outgoing Executive Director of the Uganda Media Centre and Government spokesman; now MP-elect, Ofwono-Opondo.
A rare admittance from members of the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM), Ofwono-Opondo added: “It’s not about NRM and opposition. No. It’s simply bad manners. Now that one I admit: It’s only in NRM where people are left to do mischief and get away with it. I think we’re beginning to have that kind of sober and candid discussion.”
Ofwono-Opondo, in the radio debate on the dirty course of Uganda’s elections, appeared to blame Museveni for massaging ‘bad manners’ in his administration. “I think that kind of bending backwards by the president has gone on for long. What breeds this kind of heightened security deployment? Maybe they over-exaggerate it; maybe they sex it up. Right now we’ve some military generals in jail because of writing fictitious security reports. So, I think we need to clean up. We’ve a responsibility as NRM; as the dominant group to behave in a responsible way,” the veteran journalist implored.
As this article went to bed, anti-riot police car sirens and gunshots could still be heard in the outskirts of the capital, Kampala.
