Elected on Saturday with 58.64% of the vote, Yoweri Museveni once again illustrated his desire to remain in power at all costs during a ballot under high surveillance during which he suspended access to the internet and social networks. President for 35 years, Yoweri Museveni has just won a controversial sixth term, notably against Bobi Wine, his main opponent. After coming to power in 1986, the ex-guerrilla ridiculed African leaders “who want to stay in power too long”. Today, the leader, officially 76 years old, has become the indestructible head of state he criticized when he was younger. On the continent, only Teodoro Obiang Nguema in Equatorial Guinea and Paul Biya in Cameroon have spent more time in power without interruption.
Affable allure under dictatorial practice
The man who looks like an affable grandfather, willingly theatrical, hides his military cunning and ruthless political ambition under his safari hat. In his 35-year reign, “M7” (his nickname) has stifled the opposition and merged the state and its party, the National Resistance Movement (NRM), so successfully that any attempt to challenge its power seems futile. His re-election seemed to be over in advance, despite new opposition from Bobi Wine, a 38-year-old ex-ragga singer popular with urban youth, in a country where three quarters of Ugandans are under 30 and have always known the same president.
The septuagenarian likes to do push-ups in front of his supporters, to maintain the image of an energetic leader capable of “guaranteeing your future”, his campaign slogan. A motto more cryptic than the previous ones – Museveni “for ever”, “My country, my president” -, with which he suggested his intention to rule Uganda until his death. The head of state, who never mentions his succession, had the constitution amended twice to remove the age and presidential term limits.
Irremovable “Messiah”
“He will not leave before having fulfilled his mission: to liberate Uganda and Africa”, summarizes Moses Kisha, researcher in political science in the United States. “It is of course an illusory and delusional sight, but he sees himself as a sort of messiah.” Son of breeders, the president has already considered returning to his cows in the event of defeat, but he portrays himself above all as a conscientious farmer. “How could I leave a banana plantation that I have planted and which is starting to bear fruit?” He said in 2016. The “old man who saved the country” rarely misses an opportunity to tell his legend, he who was able to create an army with initially only 27 rifles, alongside the future Rwandan leader Paul Kagame.
Former Mozambican guerrilla fighter, nourished by the anti-colonialist energy of the University of Dar es Salaam (Tanzania), he will be one of the architects of the fall of the bloodthirsty dictator Idi Amin Dada in 1979. The ex-guerrilla then resumed the bush to overthrow the repressive regime of Milton Obote a few years later. But most Ugandans are now too young to appreciate the relative stability brought by Mr. Museveni at the time. The former Marxist first won over the international community, thanks to a flash of capitalism, the rapid growth of Uganda and its fight against the HIV-AIDS pandemic.
End tactician
A fine tactician, Mr. Museveni has risen to the rank of a key regional player. Its army, accused of war crimes in the Democratic Republic of Congo, also knows how to occupy key roles, as in Somalia where Ugandan troops have been fighting since 2007 against the Shebab insurgents, affiliated with Al-Qaeda. The endemic corruption of his regime, recurring human rights violations and an anti-homosexual law adopted in 2014, however, cooled his Western allies, Washington in mind. “Museveni was brutal from the start and always played a fool’s game with the international community to secure its support,” Helen Epstein, a specialist in the relationship between the United States and Uganda, told AFP.
Authoritarian shift
The president, who concluded agreements or crushed some fifteen rebel movements, including the terrible Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), has always resisted the challenge. He even banned multiparty politics for a while. His authoritarian shift is worsening, according to Mr. Kisha. To maintain himself, “he relies more and more on money and strength.” Systematically re-elected in the first round in elections marred by irregularities and violence, Mr. Museveni methodically stifled the ambitions of Kizza Besigye, his former doctor in the maquis, in the last four elections. The autocrat reserved the same fate for his new competitor, the former ragga singer Bobi Wine, popular with urban youth. Many times arrested since 2018, the 38-year-old MP has seen his campaign violently repressed, in the name of the fight against the coronavirus.
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