Bobbi Wine, the top opposition candidate in Uganda’s presidential election, has been an outspoken critic of the country’s election while under armed house arrest.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Wine called the 14 January election a “coup” and a “mockery of democracy.”
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni reportedly won the election by securing 58 percent of the vote in the country of 44.3 million. Wine secured 34 percent of the vote. The Independent newspaper reported that Wine said he can prove military personnel from the country stuffed ballot boxes and intimidated voters at polling stations.
“This has been the most fragile election in the history of Uganda,” Wine said.
Wine, a 38-year-old musician, had been challenging Museveni, who is 76 and has held office for 36 years.
Uganda has seen its worst unrest in years. Dozens were killed in protests that were seen by outside observers as a youth movement that turned its back on the entrenched political class. Currently, the country produces jobs for only about a tenth of the 700,000 young people who reach working age each year, The Economist reported.
The protests were sparked by one of Wine’s earlier arrests for holding a rally amid the coronavirus outbreak. Anyone who was caught wearing red – the color of Wine’s opposition party, called the “National Unity Platform” – was arrested.
The Associated Press reported that the international community has called on authorities in Kampala to free Wine from house arrest. The AP’s report said authorities in the country assign a military escort whenever Wine leaves his home (on the outskirts of the capital) because he is considered a threat to public safety.
Museveni called the election “the most cheating-free” since 1962 when the country became independent from Britain.
TREND FORECAST: We note this event to illustrate the tensions growing throughout this region of Africa and its greater implications, as domestic unrest swells into civil wars and civil wars expand into regional wars.
Mr. Museveni, as with other politicians who refuse to let go of power, will do what he can to hold onto power. As with other “strongmen” around the world, they do not care about facing “international pressure,” rather they do what they can to remain in power.
Museveni has benefited from an economy the World Bank said is among the few in sub-Saharan Africa that has managed to avoid recession during the COVID outbreak. (One reason for this is because Africa does not rely on tourism.)
“The Ugandan economy is estimated to have grown 2.9% in the FY 2020 which is a far better outcome than the -0.4% decline that the World Bank projected in its June 2020 estimates,” the country’s Independent newspaper reported. The Economist reported that in Museveni’s 35 years at the helm, the country has averaged a 6 percent economic growth and the inflation rate has “rarely reached double figures.”
