The Economist: Uganda’s opposition leader is on the run after contested election

Key topics:Bobi Wine goes into hiding, rejecting Uganda’s election results.Museveni’s son threatens opposition, many supporters detained or killed.Voter abstention reflects fear and resignation under long-term rule..Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox at 5:30am weekdays. Register here.Support South Africa’s bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here.If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here..From The Economist, published under licence. The original article can be found on www.economist.com© 2025 The Economist Newspaper Limited. All rights reserved..The Economist.Exactly how Bobi Wine escaped from soldiers at his house, he will not reveal. His current whereabouts are a mystery. What he does say, speaking on a call, is that the results of Uganda’s presidential election were a “complete falsehood” and that he and his supporters are on “a mission to liberate our country”. The singer-turned-politician, whose real name is Robert Kyagulanyi, was the most popular opposition candidate in the vote held on January 15th. Now he fears for his life.That is not hyperbole. In social-media posts on January 19th Muhoozi Kainerugaba, the army chief, ranted about how he wants to kill Mr Wine and cut off his testicles. He also boasted that his men had killed 22 opposition supporters in the previous week, a number he deemed “too low”. His threats are all the more alarming because he is the son of Yoweri Museveni, the president. They make a mockery of any notion that the vote was a genuine contest..Read more:.Uganda election: Pop-star-politician Bobi Wine urges aid freeze to president-for-life Museveni (81).There was little sign of celebration when Mr Museveni was declared the winner of the election with almost 72% of the vote. Such is his grip on the state, after 40 years at the helm, that it is impossible to know how Ugandans really voted. Half of them did not even bother, according to official figures: a sign not so much of apathy as of resignation, in a country where power has never changed hands at the ballot box. “Staying away is the only form of protest the police can’t charge you for,” writes Charles Onyango-Obbo, a journalist.In Kampala, the capital, soldiers and police still patrol the streets. Human-rights activists think that more than a thousand people may have been detained since polling day. But it is hard to keep track and the police will not give numbers. The most outspoken civil-society groups have been suspended, and many activists are in hiding. Mr Wine’s party, the National Unity Platform, says that three of its deputy presidents have been detained. Security forces shot dead at least seven of the party’s supporters in murky circumstances at the home of an opposition MP.The aim of repression is to nip any protests in the bud. Mr Wine, who campaigned under the slogan of a “protest vote”, says he always knew an election alone would not be enough to bring change. But so long as he is in hiding, Kampala will remain quiet. A four-time presidential candidate, Kizza Besigye, the only other figure who might have rallied the masses, has been in prison for more than a year; his wife says he is seriously ill and being denied adequate care. The opposition is in disarray.What, then, is the point of an election which the regime treats as a military operation, the opposition sees as a sham, and half of the electorate abstains from? Ugandans are not the only ones asking. Last year, in neighbouring Tanzania, the state jailed the leading opposition candidate, massacred protesters and gave the incumbent 98% of the vote. Voters in the Republic of Congo and Djibouti, which will hold elections this spring, are not expecting a real say in the future of their countries, either. The main function of such contests is to recycle elites, like parliamentarians, rather than bring about change at the top.Since the end of the cold war, and the democratic wave that followed, elections have also been a way to win international legitimacy, although that norm is eroding. In the past, Mr Museveni has contained or co-opted opposition leaders, rather than kill them. Harming Mr Wine would achieve little and could easily backfire, as cool heads in the regime can surely see. But that is scant reassurance when General Kainerugaba revels in his image as a bloodthirsty bully and openly aspires to succeed his father. “All we want,” says Mr Wine, “is to be free”

The Economist: Uganda’s opposition leader is on the run after contested election

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From The Economist, published under licence. The original article can be found on www.economist.com

© 2025 The Economist Newspaper Limited. All rights reserved.

The Economist

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