On Saturday, the Electoral Commission announced that Yoweri Museveni, the National Resistance Movement’s flag bearer, won a fresh five-year mandate as the President of Uganda. This followed a landslide result in which turnout, per the Commission’s dataset, was considerably lower than in all comparable previous ballots held since 1996.
To be exact, one in two registered voters did not turn up to vote.
This worked out to 11,366,201 Ugandans-or 52.50 percent of the total registered voters-casting their ballot. It is a reasonable assumption that the turnout would have been higher had the biometric voter verification kits (BVVK) not malfunctioned across vast swathes of the country’s electoral precincts. A generous interpretation, however, suggests that the all-time low voter turnout was singularly occasioned by BVVK glitches. This could not be further from the truth.
The historical reasons to maximise the authenticity of the polling process by way of combating in-person fraud in ballots are valid. This is why the BVVK glitches that had many cutting forlorn figures on polling day should not be downplayed. The fact that a princely amount of taxpayers’ money was spent on the gadgets compounds matters. Yet the malfunctioning, as exasperating as it was, does not entirely explain why turnout was abjectly low.
Evidence, both empirical and anecdotal, suggests that a loss of trust in the Electoral Commission (EC) has not been without consequences. This institutional erosion on the watch of Mr Museveni, staggering in its reach and scope, counts many victims. While Robert Kasibante, one of the seven candidates Mr Museveni beat to the presidency last week, has wasted no time in filing a petition with the Supreme Court, it is not lost on many that the trust in the Judiciary is at an all-time low.
Concerns about so-called cadre judges remain deeply enmeshed in the larger society. Opposition leader Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, alias Bobi Wine, cited the deepening of the clientelist tenor in the judicial branch of government as the main reason why he withdrew his presidential petition from the country’s apex court in 2021.
Mr Kyagulanyi opined that it was better to let the court of public opinion have its two cents.
The institutional malaise in Uganda has also not spared the Legislature, where the erosion of checks on Executive authority is probably more pronounced. This has firmly placed Uganda on an autocratic trajectory, with the tools of regime legitimation-amidst authoritarian durability-growing with each passing day. We are in no doubt that this does not bode well for a country whose rich potential could very easily be put to waste.
Going forward, emphasis will need to be placed on the weakening of key institutional checks and constraints on Executive authority in Uganda. It is abundantly clear that the attendant impact of personalisation of power that it has occasioned continues to have a domino effect of loss perpetuating loss. This makes it that much more difficult to even meet the minimum criteria for democratic governance.
That the patronage and clientelism currently being witnessed in Uganda does not come as a shock but as a troubling inevitability speaks volumes. The country has to go back to a place where institutions provide checks to incumbency manoeuvre and manipulation.