In Uganda, Museveni steamrolls to a sixth term. Billions in U.S. aid helps him stay in power.
By Max Bearak,
Yasuyoshi Chiba AFP/Getty Images
KAMPALA, Uganda — Longtime Ugandan leader Yoweri Museveni won a sixth term as president with 60 percent of the vote, according to election results Saturday, in an election that highlighted the many tactics used for decades to steamroll Museveni’s opponents.
While voting Thursday was largely peaceful and orderly, the campaign period displayed the architecture of Museveni’s 35-year grip on power: relentless and violent crackdowns, widespread arrests and attempts to bar journalists and independent observers.
His ability to keep deploying them, election after election, also has been indirectly bolstered by the billion-plus dollars his government receives annually in Western aid money, primarily from the United States and U.S.-backed lending institutions.
The State Department’s assistant secretary for African affairs, Tibor Nagy, tweeted Friday that Uganda’s election was “fundamentally flawed” and that the United States was assessing options to respond. But, to many critics of Museveni, such statements are undercut by the U.S. aid money — totaling $936 million in 2019 — that just keeps coming.
“The international donors, and particularly the United States, are the biggest enablers of Museveni’s authoritarianism,” said Godber Pumushabe, a Ugandan lawyer and activist. “They underwrite all of Uganda’s public services — health, infrastructure, etcetera — which allows Museveni to spend massively on a security apparatus and a network of patronage.”
“Aid helps Ugandans,” he added, “but destroys citizen engagement.”
That security apparatus was on full display on Friday at the home of Museveni’s main challenger, 38-year-old singer-turn-politician Robert Kyagulanyi, better known by his stage name Bobi Wine.
[Uganda’s election shapes up as a contest of young vs. old]
Wine received a third of the vote from the official tally, but struggled to appeal to his supporters to either accept or reject the results because of a nationwide Internet shutdown since late Wednesday.
Dozens of heavily armed soldiers surrounded his residence, leaving him effectively under house arrest. They beat a security guard, and pointed their weapons at Wine’s wife.
Speaking to reporters in his yard, Wine said his phone was blocked from making calls and that he had sent his children out of the country “to avoid them witnessing this humiliation.”
He, too, called out Western donors for what he called complicity in Museveni’s crackdowns, which included the killings of dozens of his supports in November.
“Among the many moves we intend to do is to call upon Uganda’s development partners not to continue acting in a way that makes them appear as partners in crimes with Gen. Museveni,” he said.
The United States government was on track to match its nearly $1 billion disbursement to Uganda in 2020. Most of the money went toward health programs and training and equipping Uganda’s military.
“We’re working with the government, but we’re not just handing over blanks checks to them,” said a senior State Department officials in Uganda, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss policy issues. “It’s a difficult balance. Our assistance has real impact on the health and welling of Ugandans, but we are profoundly disappointed that we’ve seen a heavy-handed response and shrinking of the political space.”
Baz Ratner
Reuters
Polling agents celebrate the victory of Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni in general elections in Kampala, Uganda, on Jan. 16, 2021.
Uganda’s military has played a key role in U.S. foreign policy in East Africa. For years, Uganda helped the United States arms and train Sudanese rebels fighting the country’s former leader Omar al-Bashir
Now, in addition to deploying peacekeepers around the world, Uganda supplies the largest contingent to a crucial battle-ready mission to Somali, where the United States has invested billions in propping up a weak government and fighting al-Shabab, an al-Qaeda-linked group that controls much of the countryside.
Uganda also has hundreds of thousands of refugees. But Museveni’s critics point out that many are fleeing conflict that has stoked — and benefited from — in neighboring South Sudan and eastern Congo.
Abubaker Lubowa
Reuters
Ugandan presidential candidate and singer Robert Kyagulanyi, known as Bobi Wine, at a news conference at his house in Kampala, Uganda, on Jan. 15, 2021.
Under the Trump administration, aid to Uganda remained steady. As Museveni’s pre-election crackdown intensified, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned of potential sanctions.
Museveni’s government has stridently rejected allegations of running an unfair election.
When U.S. Ambassasor Matalie Brown released a statement saying that her embassy was canceling its observer mission for the election, due to Uganda’s denial of accreditation to most of the team, government spokesman Ofwono Opondo called her “arrogant.”
“Foreigners may be friends but our primary duty as govt is to Ugandan citizens,” Opondo’s tweet continued. “Your planned interference are well-known.
Incoming president Joe Biden will lead the seventh U.S. administration Museveni had dealt with in his four decades in power. Biden has tapped a longtime critic of Museveni, Samantha Power, a former ambassador to the United Nations, to lead the U.S. foreign aid agency.
Democrat leaders in the Senate, including Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), have also called for tying U.S. aid to Uganda more closely to respect to democratic values.
“An example of what we are expecting is a public commitment to work with the opposition in the spirit of national unity,” the State Department official said.
On Saturday, as final results were read out by the election commission, Wine’s house remained surrounded by dozens of heavily armed soldiers who prevented the media and members of Wine’s political party from entering the compound.
Halima Athumani contributed to this report.
[Bobi Wine on returning to Uganda despite alleged torture]
