Desperate for a voice — in Uganda, democracy has not lived up to its promise

The sight on social media of young Ugandans earnestly measuring out and marking the 20m election observers had to remain from their voting station in the bustling, low-income neighbourhood of Kibuye in Kampala, speaks to the different value Africans place in democracy.

Instead of a free choice, in the wake of the election on 15 January, Ugandans have reportedly received from the regime the mass arrest of opposition supporters, torture, the ⁠military invasion of the home of the main opposition candidate, and an internet shutdown.

In so doing, this explains precisely why more than two-thirds of Africans routinely polled prefer democracy to the alternative. In Uganda, the number is more than 80%.

The reason for this is obvious. Whereas democracy is viewed as a given in some parts of the world, for most Africans it remains an ambition.

Freedom House calculates that 93% of Africans today live in authoritarian states.

The Uganda election offered a choice between two vastly different futures: one represented continuity in the form of the 81-year-old incumbent, President Yoweri Museveni, who seized power 40 years ago.

The other choice was for change, represented by the 43-year-old Bobi Wine, the popular name of the popstar-turned-politician Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu. His campaign braved shootings, continuous intimidation, teargas and water cannon, detentions, beatings and systematic interference in attempts to garner support and deliver a message.

There is a clear empirical correlation between the state of democracy in Africa and the prospects for economic growth.

This explains why Uganda’s authoritarian past has blighted its ability to deliver to its burgeoning numbers of young people. More than 85% of today’s 50 million Ugandans are under the age of 25, with the population expected to reach 85 million by 2050. Yet the per-capita income of Ugandans is less than $990, or just 62% of the African average.

The election itself followed a typical authoritarian playbook, with state action against opponents in the run-up to voting, the internet being switched off the previous day, reducing the ability of activists to independently tally votes and report from the more than 50,000 polling stations countrywide and to expose fraud and violence on social media. As Wine put it, the election was held “in the dark”.

As if to illustrate this, when tallying got under way, he was placed under house arrest, his electricity was switched off and his house was padlocked. You don’t do this as a government if you are secure in your victory. Such tactics were also adopted in the 2021 election and in 2016 Museveni’s forces simply arrested the challenger, Dr Kizza Besigye, on the day of the election. He was arrested again in 2024 and is facing ludicrous treason charges before a military court.

Now Wine is reported as having escaped house arrest and is on the run.

The state of international relations offered a repressive tailwind to the Ugandan regime with the distraction of events from Venezuela to Greenland. Before the election, Museveni even found time to taunt the prowess of the US military. Uganda has long created Western strategic dependencies, too, through Kampala’s military involvement in Sudan, Somalia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

African agencies routinely genuflect to closing ranks around incumbents at the expense of African citizens. International organisations may be less callous, but cynically repeatedly express their concern through a set of well-meaning but hopelessly inadequate statements ranging from being “very concerned” to “deeply disturbed”.

The international community has only itself to blame for the popularity of the authoritarian election playbook. In 2016, the Commonwealth election observer team said of Uganda’s process that it “once again... fell short of meeting key democratic benchmarks”. The warnings have been consistently there, but have not been a priority for policymakers.

Yet democracy has an inestimable value.

In my home country of Botswana, democracy has lived up to its promise, with electoral accountability getting rid of failed leaders when this has been necessary.

Not so for Uganda.

Instead of working as an agent of renewal and hope, Ugandans have to put up with elections in which Museveni callously clings onto power so as to hand over to his bloodthirsty son, General Muhoozi Kainerugaba, infamous for his tweetstorms threatening violence on his father’s political opponents. He is also a fan of autocrats at large, tweeting that “President Putin does not have to threaten nuclear war. We hear him. An attack on Russia is an attack on Africa!”

There are two notable election monitoring missions in Uganda, one run by the East African Community, the other by the African Union in conjunction with other regional bodies. Both have so far been silent. The Commonwealth, of which Uganda, is a member, failed this time to send a mission, presumably precisely because it knew the election would be contested to the point of violence.

Africans and their partners should call out the African Union, its affiliates and all those African leaders who claim to represent democracy and stand for human rights to pronounce their stance on the violation of the conduct of credible elections

Without more teeth and follow-through by international actors, Africans are doomed to be treated as third-class citizens by the ruling elites and their supporters.

As the military clamps down on ordinary Ugandans desperate for a political voice, and a choice for change, you have been warned of the bloody consequences. Silence translates into complicity in the vote rigging and brutalisation of opposition on the continent, as it did with the Tanzania elections.

Such silence only entrenches and fuels dictatorships and the decline in democracy.DM

Seretse Khama Ian Khama is the former President of Botswana, and a member of the Platform for African Democrats.