The outcome of next week’s election, in my opinion, is a foregone conclusion. Many Ugandans know that President Museveni – who seized power in 1986 when his main challenger Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu was only four years old – will be declared the winner and continue in his job. To be fair, there is absolutely nothing wrong with a candidate winning and being declared a winner, even if that candidate is Mr Museveni, who is trying to extend his rule to 45 years. But how the candidate gets to win the election is key. If the election is free and fair, losers will be sadly disappointed, but they cannot run away from reality, which, as Amazon founder Jeff Bezos famously wrote in 2024, is an undefeated champion.
They just have to live with it. But if, right from the word go, voters have been suspicious of the conduct of the entire exercise and the Electoral Commission (EC), far from allaying their concerns, behaves in a way that strongly suggests it is biased, the outcome has to be disputed. A disputed election is a regrettable way of concluding an electoral exercise. In some African countries where elections have been disputed, the ensuing violence has often triggered death and destruction of devastating proportions. Think Ethiopia (2005), Kenya (2007) and Tanzania (2025). In Uganda, it has to be noted, a section of voters are trying to get rid of tired leadership. While the government has had some achievements, its failures are glaring.
When Mr Museveni came to power, Kampala was grappling with power outages. It still is. That is nearly 40 years of trying to fix a problem and dismally failing to find a solution. And this is in the capital, the heart of Uganda, where people should expect electricity 24/7. They do not get it. They do not get decent healthcare. Voters have compelling reasons to seek change. The unemployed/underemployed people living in poverty will always justifiably blame the government for ignoring their plight. The suffering for many has been immense. Graduates leave university, only to find that there are no jobs. Those who can find jobs are the lucky ones, and they tend to be well-connected.
The rest have to find ways of employing themselves, either by prevailing on their parents to sell land so they can buy motorcycles and work as boda bodas or hire agents to find them menial jobs in the Middle East. Some who have gone to the Middle East have returned in coffins because the working conditions in countries such as Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia are extremely harsh. If you stay and find a job as a nurse, policeman, or teacher, you will barely earn enough to survive. Imagine a teacher earning Shs500,000 and having a family of four to support on this salary. How can they manage? The government knows people are very unhappy. Since the presidential campaigns started, NRM leaders have been panicking. They know the chances of losing the election are real.
They give the impression they are still popular, but if they are, they should let their popularity speak for itself. Popularity means you contest a presidential election organised by an electoral body whose leader you do not appoint and expect to win. It means you are comfortable with the voters hanging around polling stations after voting so they see their votes being counted and the winners being announced. It also means those you consider to be your main challengers are allowed to campaign freely. But we all know Mr Kyagulanyi’s campaign team has had it rough. They have had almost every terrible thing thrown at them. Supporters of the party Mr Kyagulanyi leads are languishing in jail. His bodyguard, Eddie Mutwe, was tortured by the army, as Mr Kyagulanyi told Ugandans in his New Year address.