Ugandans listening to Bobi Wine during campaign. Now Museveni is trying to deny him a mandate. Photo: Facebook.
[View From Uganda]
There’s a restlessness bubbling beneath the surface in Uganda following the rigged polls to elect a new president and Members of Parliament on January 14.
This general election did not reflect the will of the people. For one, only half of all the registered voters turned up to exercise their constitutional right to elect leaders of their choice, not surprising given the brutality unleashed by the regime before and during the election—the violence continues. Out of 18 million people on the voters’ register for 2021 general election, eight million voters did not turn up at polling centers to cast their ballot. This speaks to voter apathy in the context where violence or the threat of violence hung above Ugandans like the sword of Damocles.
With Uganda People Defense Forces (UPDF) boots on the ground, the country was transfigured into a Somalia—Africa’s perennially war torn country—as helicopter gunships roamed the skies to ensure the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) party brought all its weapons to a knife fight. Many, including this columnist, were left wondering if Gen. Yoweri Museveni was ready to hand over power after deploying so heavily on the ground.
With memories still fresh with images of dead bodies after the November protests last year when leading Bobi Wine was arrested in Luuka district, our wondering turned to certainty: Museveni would never hand over power. So when the electoral results were announced on Jan. 16 by Museveni’s hand-picked Electoral Commission (EC) chairperson, Justice Simon Byabakama, many were not shocked that only 10,359, 479 votes were cast, for the presidential election, representing 57.22% of the total 18,103, 603 million registered voters. Even this low voter turnout was subjected to voter tampering to compound an already rigged election. The EC claimed that Gen. Museveni had won the presidential election, yet several Ugandans don’t seem to buy it based on comments on social media and from a sampling of reactions.
“I think Museveni switched his 35% with Bobi’s 58%,” said Justus Wabweyo, an IT consultant in Wandegeya. “That guy is capable of anything.”
“Ugandans are pissed! We preach peace, but it is hard to turn the other cheek when you’re constantly being slapped,” said a business lady who would only provide her first name, Diana, who operates a stationery shop on Nasser Road, downtown Kampala.
A boda boda—motorcycle taxi— rider outside Uganda House, Kampala road declared: “Museveni muyaaye! He lost the election! But we shall follow Bobi!”
“They shut down the internet because they have something to hide, national security is an excuse. Our government lacks credibility,” said ambassador Harold Acemah, a retired diplomat and newspaper columnist.
Indeed, the internet shutdown hurt online businesses, internet startups, and other economic imprints which the government claims to be helping as part of a Fourth Industrial revolution blurring lines between digital, physical and biological worlds. Everywhere one turns, one is confronted by cynicism and subdued anger at an election which most people deemed unfree and unfair.
“He used to call us ‘political condoms’, but when we voted against all his people now they are calling us tribalists. We are not tribalists. We are just tired of being used and abused by this fake government,” said an engineer who would only identify himself as Kasule. The engineer, who is Muganda, was referring to how the Baganda people—the largest ethnic bloc in the country—are seen as politically expendable. Bobi Wine’s National Unity Platform (NUP) party won most of the parliamentary seats in central region and will have a total of 56 MPs out of more than 500 members of parliament, mostly from Buganda. In the central region there was much more visibility and it was more difficult for some of the alleged rigging that occurred in other more remote parts of the country to be carried out.
Veteran Ugandan journalist Gawaya Tegulle summed it this way: “At least 80% of the economy is in Buganda. It has the largest voting population—All of Uganda looks to Buganda for leadership. Buganda can singlehandedly vote Mr. Museveni out of power”.
Twenty-five members of Museveni’s cabinet, including his vice-president, Edward Ssekandi, lost their parliamentary seats. These electoral losers, again, are mostly Baganda.
Clearly, the writing is on the wall for Museveni if the opposition chooses the “Prussian model” to rally for change and national unity. The Prussian model—as in late nineteenth-century Germany—is when, absent an effective majority, a cohesive group moves to the center. Prussia, led by Prince Otto von Bismarck, spearheaded German unification after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. With the French defeat, the German Empire was proclaimed in January 1871 in the Palace at Versailles, France. In Uganda, Buganda can serve as Prussia.
