Presidential Politics in Uganda: Driving Democracy Underground

Abstract

In Uganda, the restoration of multi-party electoral politics in 2005 came after 19 years of President Museveni’s rule and chairmanship of the National Resistance Movement (NRM). Museveni won the previous presidential elections in 1996 and 2001, and was, at the time, constitutionally barred from standing for another term in 2006. Not satisfied with this situation, a bill was passed that lifted presidential term limits, leaving Museveni free to ‘win’ the 2006, 2011, and 2016 elections. Changing the rules further, Museveni drove the lifting of age limits for presidential candidates and is set to be re-elected at the age of 76, in 2021. In this paper, I argue that political manipulation of term and age limits and the centralisation of power has done more than make Uganda less democratic. It has reshaped the very nature of politics over the long term, reducing opposition to something that can only operate through casual channels as a form of ‘pop-up’ politics. The net result of this situation is that a credible, open, institutional political organisation capable of building solid coalitions is no longer possible in Uganda. Those who stand to oppose the president do so from the shadows, as a form of oppositional populist politics—knowing what they oppose but having undeveloped political structures and platforms to stand as an alternative. In the long term, this situation has emptied out Uganda’s political space, leaving the disenfranchised unable to assert their voice effectively or openly participate in changing their own country.