Three former allies of Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni, each of whom have announced their candidacy in next year’s election, appear to now be on the wrong end of the incumbent’s wrath.
Ugandans are still reeling from the arrest and release of two of the prominent politicians last week, a move that foreshadows a potentially poll.
Last Friday, former Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi and Kizza Besigye, a former presidential candidate, were placed under “preventive arrest” after announcing their intentions to challenge Museveni’s three decades in power in the 2016 election. They were released 12 hours later without charge. Last month, prospective presidential candidate David Sejusa endured a similar ordeal.
Each of these potential challengers was at one time part of Mr. Museveni’s tight inner circle, “The Historicals,” which has slowly crumbled amid his efforts to consolidate his power. Having in some cases fought beside Museveni in the Bush War that brought him to power in 1986, they are now his bitter enemies as the strongest threat to his bid for another term.
“There has been disaffection among many of The Historicals and Museveni’s associates for a long time,” says Aili Tripp, a professor of politics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Most felt that Museveni has remained in power too long and needs to open up space for other leaders. Even those who once supported him feel the country needs a change.”
The recent arrests are an indication that Museveni is conscious of a real threat to his weakening regime.
“I think the arrests speak to the paranoia that I think is inevitable when a regime is in power for 30 years,” says Joshua Rubongoya, a political science professor at Roanoke College. “As legitimacy declines, coercion and the use of the state security apparatus becomes more and more profound and prominent.”
Museveni’s former allies have been ramping up their opposition for years. Kizza Besigye, Museveni’s physician during the Bush War, is running against him for the fourth time in the 2016 election.
The fallout between the two men has been bitter. When Besigye first ran against Museveni in 2001, an election won in suspicious circumstances, Museveni threatened to put Besigye “six feet under.” Besigye’s 2006 campaign was even more eventful: he was arrested for treason and rape, charges that were later dropped, and lost in what is widely termed a ‘stolen election’.
But perhaps no threat is as serious and personal as that from Amama Mbabazi – one time Prime Minister and for decades Museveni’s right hand man. Also a Bush War veteran, he was known as Uganda’s Mr.-Fix-It; at one point serving simultaneously as attorney general as well as defence and foreign affairs minister.
Until last year, Mbabazi was Museveni’s presumed successor – which made his sudden dismissal from his prime ministership last year shocking to the nation and created a rift between power players in Ugandan politics. Now he is running for the candidacy of Museveni’s own party, the National Resistance Movement.
“Many are eager to see Museveni leave power and if it appears that Mbabazi is the one best poised to do that, they may support him,” says Tripp, adding: “Much will depend on whether Mbabazi can work with the opposition coalition, the Democratic Alliance.”
Each of Museveni’s challengers faces a difficult battle. Mbabazi and David Sejusa, in particular, are accused of being instrumental to the very government they now they decry. On one hand, Sejusa had been Museveni’s spymaster for decades and has overseen multiple arrests. His announcement of a staged coup attempt in 2013, aided by Mbabazi and other former members of Museveni’s inner circle, forced him to flee to London for two years before returning late last year.
On the other hand, Mbabazi was widely perceived as the party strategist. In 2005, he supported an amendment to allow Museveni to run for another term, and he supported the law giving police officers control over who is allowed to hold a public meeting. Mbabazi says he now regrets both of those moves.
“The very machinery of the [ruling] party that are now incarcerating him are a product of his own design,” says Rubongoya.
Museveni still holds strong support and commands an army of loyal electoral commissioners, a vast spy network and the most powerful arms of the military. Furthermore, Museveni benefits from a much divided opposition.
“If the opposition had its act together, by now they would have a unified candidate to canvas the country,” Rubongoya says.
But the threat is being felt by Museveni. Joseph Bbosa, a member of the opposition Uganda People’s Congress, told a local paper that last week’s arrests were an indicator that the 2016 elections will not be free and fair.
“Mr. Museveni quakes during election time and wants your legs and hands to be tied on a 50kg bag of cement so that you have no power to harm him.”
