Uganda and Its Longtime Leader at a Crossroads

The benevolent autocrat who salvaged Uganda from decades of violence and anarchy faces the toughest challenge of his political career today as voters decide whether to reelect him or follow a trend of change sweeping Africa.

President Yoweri Museveni, 56, a former freedom fighter who has been in office for 15 years, is up against five other candidates in his bid for a final five-year term. But pundits say he has only one serious competitor, Kiiza Besigye, 54, a retired army colonel who fought with Museveni in his guerrilla campaign to take power in the 1980s.

Museveni is widely expected to win because of the network and resources of his ruling National Resistance Movement. But analysts say Besigye’s popularity has reminded the incumbent that a lengthy tenure no longer guarantees a hold on power.

Veteran leaders were replaced in Ghana and Senegal last year, and in 1999, Ivory Coast’s longtime president was ousted in a military coup by an army general--who was subsequently forced out in an unprecedented show of people power.

Uganda’s campaign has been marred by violence and intimidation, which local and foreign human rights observers say have been instigated primarily by the government through use of the military, police and internal security forces.

“The significance of these elections is that Museveni has got an effective challenger,” said Sabiti Makara, a senior lecturer and political scientist at Makerere University in the capital, Kampala. “Even if he wins, the civil society and the opposition have been unfrozen from their state of fear of the ‘Big Man.’ The close race shows that people feel there is another person who can do what the president has done.”

Both Museveni and Besigye hail from the country’s west, so tribal affiliation is not an issue. Both appear to enjoy substantial support of the Baganda people, Uganda’s largest ethnic group, with whom cooperation is key for any government.

In a folksy analogy comparing their country to a bicycle, Museveni calls himself the cotter pin holding things together as the nation moves forward. Besigye labels himself the hammer that can remove the pin.

Museveni, who has the longest successive tenure of any Ugandan president, takes credit for boosting the profile of this landlocked East African nation of 23 million people and for securing substantial peace and stability. War and tyranny have plagued Uganda for much of its 39 years since it gained independence from Britain.

Museveni has liberalized the economy, which has made him popular with Western donors. About half of Uganda’s budget consists of foreign aid. He has introduced educational reforms that guarantee universal elementary schooling and promoted education for girls; he has fostered AIDS awareness and promoted gender equality through affirmative action policies.

“We have moved from political and economic anarchy and institutional decay to a democratic system. With regards to the army, he has tamed the gun and the holder of that gun,” said Apollo Nsibambi, Uganda’s prime minister. “Why shouldn’t we give him a chance to institutionalize such major achievements?”

“We don’t believe in change for change sake,” added John Nagenda, a senior presidential advisor.

But Museveni has drawn fire for not instituting a more traditional democracy in which political parties are allowed to function. The president has argued that parties inevitably become vehicles for tribal leaders who want to grab power for their own ethnic groups. In a referendum last year, Ugandans backed him.

Political parties do exist in Uganda but are prohibited from conducting campaigns, publicly seeking members or raising money. Candidates are required to run as individuals.

According to the constitution, if Museveni is reelected, it must be his last term. Critics argue that Museveni has manipulated the system in an attempt to ensure that his successor is someone he endorses.

Besigye has promised to introduce pluralism and a transitional government that would pave the way to full democracy. Care in government-run hospitals and secondary school education would be free, and there would be huge government subsidies for higher education, Besigye declared. Besigye says he would reform a despised tax system that hits the poor particularly hard.

The challenger also has picked up on the dissatisfaction many Ugandans feel about their country’s involvement in the war in neighboring Congo, and has promised to unilaterally withdraw all of Uganda’s troops there. Earlier this month, Uganda, which has several thousand troops in Congo, began withdrawing 1,600 of them. Museveni has said the country’s mission is virtually complete, but critics doubt his sincerity.

“We are spending high in the war in Congo,” complained Robert Kayondo, 27, a student in the farming community of Masaka, about 80 miles southwest of Kampala. “We are losing lives. We are creating enemies. If we give Museveni five more years, we are going to experience more war.”

The president has refused to negotiate with rebels in the country’s west and north, arguing that he does not deal with terrorists. Besigye has pledged to engage them.

Museveni’s critics also argue that he has become complacent.

“He now listens to the problems of the people through other intermediaries,” said Besigye, who asserts that he would be “the president who listens.”

Museveni’s supporters, the large majority of them women, say the president has heard their pleas for greater security.

“Before, there were thieves” in office, said Mamaato Kasifa, 46, owner of a small variety store in Masaka. “When [Milton] Obote was in power, soldiers used to loot us. We could not travel from Masaka to Kampala without being ambushed on the way. Now we are able to move freely. The fear is what might happen if Museveni goes.”

Many Ugandans express such fear about the outcome of the vote.

“People are both calm and anxious,” said the Rev. Canon Grace Kaiso, national coordinator of a local nongovernmental election-monitoring group, which plans to deploy 17,500 observers around the country. “Calm in the sense that most have made up their minds about whom they will vote for, anxious about what will happen after polling day.”

Playing up worries of election violence, the Ugandan government last month halted the importation of machetes.

“If anybody tries this rubbish, they will be strictly dealt with,” warned Nagenda, the presidential advisor. “If they are going to use violence, we will use greater violence, because they have the power of the ballot [to express themselves].”