Museveni’s toughest election moments

Among the undeclared districts was Besigye’s home district of Rukungiri, where only votes from 3 out of 273 polling stations were declared at the time Museveni was announced winner with 60%. Rukungiri had 162,019 registered voters. Besigye was leading with 62.4% of declared results but his percentage could end up higher.

Besigye also beat Museveni in Kampala and Wakiso, where results from some 281 polling stations were not declared. Combined, the two districts alone have 1,914,329 registered voters.

Even in districts where Museveni won like Jinja, only results from 11 out of 399 polling stations were declared. Jinja has 233,848 registered voters, only 3842 votes were counted giving Museveni a 62.4 percent victory against Besigye’s 35.6 percent.  Across the country, Besigye has increased the number of districts in which he won to 14 from 5 in 2011. In central, Besigye won the three districts of Kampala, Wakiso and Masaka, in the east, five districts of Mbale, Soroti, Tororo, Sironko and Ngora, in the north, four districts of Amuru, Lira, Gulu and Pader and in the West, two districts of Kasese and Rukungiri.

However, a critical look at the 49 districts where the EC did not declare all the results shows that Besigye may have won in many more districts especially in the east.

Besigye, who describes it as the most fraudulent electoral process in Uganda, has rejected the results and is calling on the international community to isolate Museveni.

Besigye views of the election have also been cited by international election observers from the European Union, the African Union, and the Electoral Institute for Sustainable Democracy in Africa, and others. Many of them pronounced the election to have fallen below democratic standards. They point at the lack of independence, technical incompetence, and partisanship of the electoral body. Glaring failures include very late delivery of voting material to polling stations. If viewed as deliberate, the delays are the clearest evidence of involvement in rigging by the Electoral Commission.

Observers, including those of the EU who arrived early, noted that partisan security forces allied to Museveni did not allow the opposition to campaign freely. In many areas, opposition supporters faced verbal threats, intimidation, and physical harassment. Opposition supporters were scattered by teargas and bullets fired by a partisan police. Some people were killed. On Election Day, the sight of columns of partisan police scared many from voting.

The EU has been uncharacteristically forceful in its criticism saying the vote was marred by avoidable and logistical failures, which led to an unacceptable number of Ugandan citizens being disenfranchised.

U.S. Secretary of State, John Kerry, rang President Museveni expressing concerns. Following that call, the U.S. commenting on elections said Ugandans deserved better and called for the release of Besigye.

Other observers say many voters paid attention to warnings that only a Museveni win would guarantee their safety. On the other hand, the opposition, kept warning voters to guard their vote against theft and be ready to defend it. Fear of post-election violence was a major factor in the election.

As the Electoral Commission started announcing results on Feb. 19, police stormed FDC headquarters, sprayed it with teargas using canisters and a chopper and arrested the party President, Gen. Mugisha Muntu, its Chief Mobiliser,  Ingrid Turinawe, and Besigye himself.  The trio was detained without charges at Naggalama Police Station. While Muntu and Besigye were released, Turinawe was detained overnight.

It was the second time in two days Besigye was getting arrested. He was first arrested on polling day in Naguru as he and a group of opposition activists stormed what they claimed was a vote rigging facility.

Besigye was able to grow his support base because across the country, over 45 percent of voters told pollsters they wanted change. Most importantly, a critical mass of those who wanted change voted in urban and semi-urban areas, which also have the biggest populations.

For instance, Wakiso and Kampala, which have the biggest populations in Uganda all voted Besigye in big numbers. The two have a combined voting population of over 1.9 million and voted Besigye with 59 and 65 percent respectively. In the east and north, where Besigye also made major inroads, factors that favored Museveni in 2011 like having ended the insurgency did not count much this time around.

In 2011, Museveni was able to beat Besigye because he won in all the other districts except the three that DP candidate Norbert Mao won in northern Uganda and the five that Besigye won; that is Kampala and Wakiso in central Uganda and Serere, Soroti and Kaberamaido in eastern Uganda.

Apart from Kampala and Wakiso, Museveni won in all the other regions—Eastern, Northern, Northeastern, Southern and West Nile. This was a big gain for Museveni compared to 2006, when he lost the entire North, West Nile, parts of Eastern and parts of Western Uganda. In the 2006 election, Museveni got 4.0 million voters or 59 percent of the vote, against Besigye’s 2.5 million or 37.5 percent total votes were 8.2 million.  At the time, the north was still suffering the insecurity caused by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and Eastern Uganda, insecurity from both the rebels and Karamoja armed cattle rustlers. Majority of the people were still in the war camps facing terrible living conditions.

After that election, Museveni’s government embarked on pacifying the north and disarming Karamoja cattle rustlers. With LRA wiped out of the north and government implementing resettling programmes and rehabilitation programmes, Museveni courted the north and his wife Janet Museveni, who was appointed Minister for Karamoja, also helped court Karamoja.

Museveni earned the dividend of these investments in the 2011 elections. He threatened to win the entire north had it not been for the participation of two sons of the soil, Mao and UPC’s Olara Otunnu.

However, in the recent election, the ground seems to have significantly changed under Museveni’s feet. Although over all, Museveni still won all the regions apart from Kampala and Wakiso according to declared data, a critical look at the data shows that Besigye significantly reduced his numbers.

President Museveni, talking to journalists on Feb.21 at his home country, said the ruling party lost Kampala because of the way Jennifer Musisi, the Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) displaced street vendors and other small business people in her efforts to fix the city.

Apart from the vendors, KCCA developments have also affected boda boda cyclists and taxi operators, groups that President Museveni had managed to court with lots of cash in 2011.

But Museveni does not mention that Kampala is the stronghold of Erias Lukwago, who won elections, became mayor was forced out by Museveni’s government only to be reinstated by the courts. President Museveni through his Minister of Presidency, Frank Tumwebaze still blocked him to the chagrin of multitudes of supporters who voted him resoundingly in 2011.

In the north, where Besigye claimed all the three districts previously won by Mao plus one other district, President Museveni might have ended the insurgency and established peace but major issues of contention remain. In Amuru, for instance, efforts to give land to Madhvani to erect a sugar factory resulted into some of the worst protests with old women stripping before ministers as a superstitious way of reportedly cursing them.

Indeed, land grabbing was a major concern throughout the north and the east, where investors have forcefully acquired large tracts of land with the collusion of the government. Besigye also made major in-roads in the east by promising to end poverty in the region. Eastern Uganda is the epicenter of poverty in Uganda.

Apart from these issues, as the ruling party concentrated on neutralising Mbabazi whom they considered the biggest threat, Besigye built momentum and attracted mammoth crowds throughout Kampala, Wakiso, eastern and northern Uganda. That seems to have had a ripple effect on western Uganda with many people turning up at Besigye rallies and giving him gifts.

Most of Besigye voters were urban and semi-urban dwellers, the EC data shows. These also happen to be the areas where a bigger percentage of people told pollsters before the election that they wanted change and would vote against Museveni. In rural areas, fewer areas wanted change and many said they would vote Museveni.

In an opinion poll by pollster Research World International (RWI) conducted between December 19, 2015 and Jan.10, overall, 46% of respondents said they wanted change.

In Kampala, 63 per cent said they wanted change and 65.7 per cent voted Besigye. 60 percent of urban dwellers also said they wanted change and Besigye has won several major cities and polled between 30% and 45% of the vote in several others. Museveni won majority of rural areas, where only 39 percent said they wanted change.  Part of the explanation of Besigye’s victory in urban areas is the youth factor. Uganda has the second youngest population in the world, with 78 percent under the age of 30.  The youth constitute at least 6.4 million voters. Most of these are urban dwellers. Up to 52% of the youth aged between 18and 44 wanted change of the president.

Most of these were born during Museveni’s government and only hear about the horrors of the previous regimes. Therefore, the notion of peace and stability is not enough to decide their vote.

The youth also happen to be the most unemployed. About 83 percent of young people are reported to be unemployed. According to RWI’s poll, 46 percent of the people said corruption was the biggest problem followed by unemployment at 45 percent.

Museveni’s poor performance in the recent elections and his vow to scuttle further the opposition are the latest portends that the 71-year old man with a hat who has ruled Uganda for 30 years is not about to bow out. The constitution places a 75-year age bar on presidential aspirants and Museveni would be ineligible when his newly won term ends in 2021. But he has fiddled with the constitution in the past and is expected to do so as the earliest order of business for the new incoming parliament. The only question is whether Besigye, who will be 65 years old in 2021 and could be buoyed by the strong out pouring of support this time, will also run. If he does, it will be the fifth time the two are dueling for the top job in the land – and not many Ugandans are looking forward to that.