How ex-rebel Yoweri Museveni remained in power for 35 years

Ugandans under 35 – representing more than three quarters of the population – met only one president.

Yoweri Museveni, who came to power after an armed uprising in 1986, defied the political laws of gravity that toppled other longtime leaders in the region.

The 76-year time at the top has been accompanied by a long period of peace and major developmental changes for which many are grateful. But he managed to maintain control of power through a mix of encouraging a cult of personality, employing sponsorship, compromising independent institutions, and alienating opponents.

During the last election, five years ago, when he addressed the issue of his resignation, he asked: “How can I leave a banana plantation that I planted and that started to bear fruit?”

For this revolutionary, the harvest is not over yet.

My introduction to the president took place in the 1990s, in the form of a school play in which the turmoil of the years of Milton Obote and Idi Amin was staged.

The play climaxed on January 26, 1986, with Museveni’s National Resistance Army liberating the country, ending the senseless wars and murders.

It is this image of man as a liberator and bearer of peace that many Ugandans have been brought up with and are remembered at all times.

Presidential push-ups

He is also a father figure and a grandfather.

Many young Ugandans refer to the president by the nickname “Sevo”, and he affectionately calls them Bazukulu (meaning grandchildren in the Luganda language).

But the family man does not see himself as a typical aged patriarch, reclining in his favorite chair with his children and grandchildren busy.

In his campaign for the sixth elected term, which appears to have started shortly after the last election, he has been touring the country, opening factories, opening roads and opening new markets.

And eyeing his relatively young challenger, former popstar Bobi Wine, 38, Museveni is eager to show his vitality. Last April, to encourage exercise during confinement, he was filmed doing push-ups and then repeated the trick several times, including in front of students who applauded in November.

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“If your father loves you, he has to empower you. In the next five years, ‘Sevo’ will ensure that when we finish school, we can get jobs,” said Angela Kirabo, 25, touching on the issue. youth unemployment, which is a major source of concern.

The graduate in economics is a proud Muzukulu (grandson), having grown up in a family that supported the National Resistance Movement (NRM). She also served as vice president of the party section at the university and thinks the president still has a lot to offer after 35 years in power.

Presidential age limits overturned

One of his closest friends and advisers, John Nagenda, says Museveni’s selflessness is one reason for his ability to inspire loyalty.

“He was prepared to die for Uganda. I would say that we are very lucky to have him,” said the 82-year-old.

“Most of the other people I know who were presidents wanted to do this for themselves; they wanted glory. But Museveni wants to do [it] for the country and the continent … he is an Africanist. “

However, according to the original provisions of the 1995 constitution, the president should not have run again after 2005.

In fact, before that it was widely known that he was against staying in power, ignoring doubts about the idea, saying that he preferred to go back to his farm.

Journalist William Pike, who was once seen as very close to the president and the NRA, described in his memoirs how the president was genuinely upset when asked at a dinner in the early 1990s whether he would like to remain in power for the rest of his life. his.

“Museveni said, ‘Of course not,’ but he was clearly furious at what he considered a real insult. He was not pretending. At this stage, he really did not intend to remain in power,” wrote Pike.

But something changed his opinion in 2004, although it was never clear exactly what it was, and his parliamentarians endorsed the idea that the constitution should be amended to remove the limits of presidential terms.

He had the green light to remain standing until he was 75 years old.

And then, in December 2017, the constitutional obstacle to an age limit for a presidential candidate was also removed – an issue that sparked fights in parliament and a police raid on the building.

Many saw this as the NRM’s way of allowing Museveni to become president for life.

It was no coincidence that parliament felt obliged to reward the longtime leader. The willingness of parliamentarians to agree to the changes has a lot to do with the fact that they feel they owe their positions to the president.

Fewer challenges to authority

The importance of sponsorship extends across society.

Sometimes it manifests itself as development programs for women, market vendors and public jobs. In a country where 15% of young people are unemployed and more than 21% of the population live in poverty, aligning yourself with the right party can save an entire village from poverty.

But his supporters point to Uganda’s transformation as a positive reason to give Museveni another five years.

“If you come from the north and east, you will understand that a major peace achievement has been achieved. For 20 years these regions have been engulfed by war,” said Jacob Eyeru, 28, who heads the government’s National Youth Council.

While recognizing that unemployment is a concern, he adds that the NRM “has transformed the economy to make it competitive not only regionally, but globally” as well.

Despite these changes, he also weakened the independence of some of the country’s top institutions to ensure fewer challenges to his authority.

The judiciary has not been spared and, in recent years, has been accused of recruiting so-called “panel judges”, who are loyal to the government.

When judges make independent decisions, they sometimes find themselves at odds with the authorities.

For example, on December 16, 2005, highly trained armed security guards invaded the High Court in the capital, Kampala, and arrested again members of the allegedly rebellious People’s Redemption Army, who had just been cleared of charges of treason.

“They turned the Temple of Serenity into a theater of war,” wrote Judge James Ogoola in a poem about the incident entitled Rape of the Temple.

When it comes to contesting electoral results, the outcome of all presidential disputes, except that of 2011, has been contested in court. In all cases, the courts decided that the irregularities were not serious enough to justify their annulment.

The media also had its independence threatened.

Superficially, Uganda has an active media industry that has grown to hundreds of private radio and TV stations, print and Internet-based services under Museveni.

“In the beginning, before cynicism and decay set in, there was a strand of intellectualism within the regime that tolerated divergent points of view and was able to debate and disagree with them,” said Daniel Kalinaki, editorial general manager of the Nation Media Group, in Kampala.

But media outlets were invaded and journalists were detained as government leaders became “increasingly fragile,” added Kalinaki.

But perhaps the most significant factor in Museveni’s longevity is the way in which any potential opposition force has been neutralized.

Opposition supporters shot dead

When it became clear 20 years ago that he would remain in power, some of his former associates began to part ways. In doing so, the security forces, labeled as the people’s police and the army, aimed their weapons at these political opponents.

Kizza Besigye of the opposition Forum for Democratic Change, who was once a doctor for Museveni, ran for the first time against him in the 2001 elections. He was arrested and prosecuted on several charges, including rape and betrayal, but was never convicted.

Now that Bobi Wine, a singer whose real name is Robert Kyagulanyi, is seriously challenging the president’s government, he has become the latest politician to face the ire of uniformed men.

The MP, whose star attracts crowds of young people, was brutally arrested during a colleague’s election campaign in the northwestern city of Arua in 2018. He then faced charges of treason, which were later dropped.

In the electoral campaign, the police arrested, released tear gas and fired at him and his supporters for defying coronavirus restrictions at the meeting of large groups.

During two days of protests in November after Bobi Wine’s arrest, 54 people were killed, many allegedly shot by security forces.

Sticking your head over the parapet in Uganda is a courageous choice and anyone who wants to challenge Mr. Museveni should have no doubts about the level of harassment they are likely to face.

During his 35 years in charge, he came to sit at the height of power, where he has complete control. He also managed to reinvent himself.

Considering that he was once the political upstart in his 40s, anyone who takes on that role now risks incurring considerable anger.