Ugandan President-for-Life’s election ‘victory’, literally getting away with murder

Key topics:Uganda election marred by intimidation, violence, and internet shutdownMuseveni wins seventh term amid fraud claims and human rights concernsCalls grow for international audit of Ugandan and Tanzanian polls.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..By Platform for African Democrats*.The Platform for African Democrats (PAD) takes note of developments around the Uganda election held on 15 January 2026.This was an election that offered Ugandans a choice between two vastly different futures: one represented continuity in the form of the 81-year-old candidate, President Yoweri Museveni, who seized power forty years ago and was standing for a seventh term in office. His campaign was visibly reliant on state resources to maintain regime security and elite interests.The other choice was for change, represented by the 43-year-old Bobi Wine, the popular name of Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu. This campaign braved shootings, continuous intimidation, teargassing and water-cannons, detentions, beatings and systematic interference in its attempts to garner support and deliver a message.The election itself followed a typical authoritarian playbook, with the internet being switched off the previous day, reducing the ability of activists to independently tally votes and report from the more than fifty thousand polling stations countrywide and to expose fraud and violence on social media. The regime maintained a heavy security presence at the polling stations, reportedly preventing access by opposition agents..Read more:.Uganda election: Pop-star-politician Bobi Wine urges aid freeze to president-for-life Museveni (81).By the close of election day, amidst widespread opposition claims of ballot-stuffing and vote-rigging, it was reported that state security forces had surrounded and invaded the home of Bobi Wine, a tactic also adopted in the 2021 election. In 2016, Museveni’s forces simply arrested the challenger Dr Kizza Besigye on the day of the election.The Ugandan regime has denied that there is anything to hide about the election, despite the internet shutdown, the suppression of polling-station data making impossible the verification of results, the heavy presence of security forces, and the rapid declaration of Museveni as the president.Countries that turn off the internet during an election usually have something to hide. This is a jaded script with dire human rights consequences.African authoritarians and the elites who buzz around them think that they can get away with treating their people with disdain, as third-class passengers while they fly first, immune from the struggles and bitter choices of everyday life.In neighbouring Tanzania, thousands of protesters died after the travesty of the election last October, ‘won’ by Samia Suluhu Hassan with a purported 97% of the vote, extending the rule of Chama Cha Mapinduzi, effectively in power since independence in 1961. Only this past week has Samia now embarked on a diplomatic mission, apologising for shutting off the internet and pardoning some political prisoners in an effort, she says, “to build a nation that is both prosperous and at peace with itself”, but not offering an election re-run or to release the major opposition leader, Tundu Lissu.Authoritarianism can only worsen the prospects for Africa’s young people. There is a clear empirical correlation between the state of democracy in Africa and the prospects for economic growth. Surveys have shown that 90% of Ugandans reject one-party rule, and more than 80% prefer democracy. The likelihood of continued violence and human rights abuses is high if the majority of Ugandans believe Museveni has stolen the election.Uganda’s authoritarian past has blighted its ability to deliver to its burgeoning numbers of young people. More than 85% of today’s 50 million Ugandans are under the age of 25, with the population expected to reach 85 million by 2050. Yet the per capita income of Ugandans is less than $990, or just 62% of the African average.The international community has only itself to blame for the popularity of the authoritarian election playbook. The warnings have been consistently there, but have not been a priority for policymakers.African leaders and agencies routinely preach about the value of democracy but genuflect to closing ranks around incumbents at the expense of African citizens. Other states and international organisations express concern, but their actions suggest that they couldn’t care less.And yet without concerted and aligned actions inside and outside the continent, Africans are doomed to be treated as third-class citizens by ruling elites and their supporters. To break this cycle of impunity and poverty, the international community needs to support those doing the right thing at home, through deliberate action, not empty words..Read more:.What Tanzania’s authoritarian turn can teach South Africa about political complacency.The PAD calls on those international actors who care for and are invested in the future of Africa to conduct a thorough audit of the Tanzanian and Ugandan elections, which would propose practical remedial measures in the case of electoral fraud. Without this action, these regimes will be permitted to get away literally with murder.Signed by:Adalberto Costa Junior, President: UNITA, AngolaAderemi Ajibewa, Former Director of Political AFairs: ECOWAS, NigeriaAlfonso de Prat Gay, Former Minister of Finance, ArgentinaBranko Brkic, Leader: Project Kontinuum, South AfricaCirino Hiteng Ofuho, Real Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, South SudanDavid Coltart, Mayor of Bulawayo, ZimbabweEdwin Sifuna, Senator, KenyaEerik-Niiles Kross, Member of the Riigikogu, EstoniaGladys Hlatywayo, MP, ZimbabweGloria Uwishema Nsengiyumva, Human Rights activist, All for Rwanda, RwandaGreg Mills, Platform for African Democrats, South AfricaIan Khama (Lt-Gen), former President, BotswanaJeFrey Smith, Executive Director: Vanguard Africa, USJohn Wegesa Heche, Vice-Chairman: Chama Cha Demokrasia na Maendeleo(CHADEMA), TanzaniaJohn Steenhuisen, Leader: Democratic Alliance, South AfricaJonas Mulato, Secretary for International Relations, UNITA, AngolaKarin von Hippel, former Director-General: RUSI, USKate Almquist Knopf, former USAID Assistant Administrator for Africa, USKateryna Yushchenko, former First Lady, UkraineLeopoldo Lopez, World Liberty Congress, VenezuelaLuis Ravina, Director of the Navarra Center for International DevelopmentLutero Simango, President: MDM, MozambiqueManuel de Araujo, Mayor of Quelimane, MozambiqueMerera Gudina, Oromo People’s Congress, EthiopiaMoeketsi Majoro, former Prime Minister, LesothoNic Cheeseman, Professor of Democracy: University of Birmingham, UKPaula Cristina Roque, Executive Director: Intelwatch, South AfricaPrecious Omuku, Bishop: former Archbishop of Canterbury’s Special Representative onConflict in Sub-Saharan Africa, NigeriaRugemeleza Nshala, Attorney-General: CHADEMA, TanzaniaRay Hartley, Platform for African Democrats, South AfricaRyan Smith, Foreign AFairs Spokesperson: Democratic Alliance, South AfricaSouleymane Coulibaly, Democratic Party (PDCI-RDA), Cote d’IvoireTendai Biti, former Minister of Finance, ZimbabweTut Riek Jikany, WLC Leadership Council, South Sudan Democracy Initiative (SSDNI),South SudanViktor Yushchenko, Former President, Ukraine.*The Platform for African Democrats (PAD) is a forum for Africans dedicated to building democracy and ending autocratic rule..This article was first published by Daily Friend and is republished with permission