Electoral process in Uganda

Kampala, Dec 2—Uganda is in a tense unpredictable presidential race. The three main contenders—including the incumbent Rtd Gen Yoweri Museveni, Rtd Col Kiiza Besigye and former Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi all have either military or security background. They have also at one time served in the same government and were heroes of the 1986 revolution that toppled former dictatorial regimes of Idi Amin and Milton Obote.

The race to be decided on February 18, 2016 remains tensely unpredictable because the 53-year-independent country has never witnessed a peaceful transfer of power. In addition each of the three main contenders is showing tendencies of applying violence to determine the final outcome. Yet the amount of money involved has already potentially affected the economy—driving inflation from as low as 3.4% to 9.7%.

Loyalty of the security apparatus is more than ever before divided between the incumbent and the former vice president. And within the military, the norm of non-partisanship for active soldiers has been broken with former spy chief Gen David Sejusa clearly taking sides and campaigning for the FDC presidential candidate Dr Besigye.

On his part, the police chief Kale Kayihura is clandestinely managing a campaign team with a national character on behalf of the incumbent. On the other hand, owing to his long experience in both external security and international military operations buttressed with Israel Mosad training in intelligence works, Amama Mbabazi has successfully courted the backing of Western powers to become the next president. But this is hugely conditioned on his ability to marshal sufficient local support. Hence, the three main contenders are each deploying unique strategies to prepare for both a convincing margin of victory and how to protect that victory even if violently.

POLITICAL STATUS
The entry of Amama Mbabazi into the race changed many things. The traditional strangleholds of Museveni in western Uganda—especially Kigezi region and also the central region of the most populous Buganda is today uncertain and Museveni cannot count on them. This explains why he entered into an alliance with UPC which dominates in Lango region of mid-northern Uganda. But numerically, this cannot fill up the vacuum left by Buganda and Kigezi. Whereas the central region is clearly yarning for change of government, this does not guarantee support for Mbabazi. It rather does for Kiiza Besigye whom they can now trust to fundamentally differ from Museveni. The only challenge is that Besigye cannot protect victory because the West does not endorse him. Unlike Mbabazi who can easily or even better than Museveni serve the west’s interests, Besigye has, over the years been mentally tested not to easily dance to the west’s tunes. He has for example publically denounced the ‘hired’ deployment of UPDF in Somalia, welcomed the attempted law against homosexuality and would want Uganda build an oil refinery as opposed to the World Bank’s advice for only a pipeline. Therefore, Besigye’s message of ‘One Uganda, One people’ is perceived in the west as unappealing to their interests-despite the fact they support the national budget by about 12% in addition to huge funding of NGOs.

Therefore, with Besigye’s infiltration of Museveni’s strangleholds and Mbabazi’s in-between interventions makes none of these contenders a straight forward winner if the race were to be free and fair.

MUSEVENI’S TACTICS
(i) Counter intelligence on rival camps (ii) buying off rival strategists, (iii) fielding more than one MP per constituency (iv) utilizing security agencies (v) freezing or blocking rival sources of funding—at emigration points and directly calling foreign leaders to express dismay. He physically visited United Arab Emirates before the campaigns to seek audience with that country’s Emir and express his concerns. But he only had audience with the Emir of Dubai. (iv) intimidation of the electorate such as threatening violence in case his opponents ‘work with electoral commission to deny him victory.’ In other words he is not ready to concede defeat. (v) massive mobilization at village level-with a thirty-member committee of men and women (vi) his camp also has a strategy of using the national voters register and print an alternative voters register and tick over two million names of voters on counterfeit ballot papers—that will be stuffed in ballot boxes at secret locations. This is a strategy that is near to impossible for the opposition to detect and foil.

MBABAZI’S TACTICS
(i) Counter intelligence on rival camps, alliance members and within his team. (ii) Courting the donor community and their security and defense apparatus for material and security backing (iii) fielding candidates at all positions (iv) massive mobilization at village level—with a 40-member committee of men and women (v) infiltration of key government agencies for vital information—including the electoral commission, police, ISO, ESO, military and state house.

BESIGYE’S TACTICS
(i) Articulation of government failures—thus appealing to urban dwellers most. (ii) Formation of vigilant groups of 10-members per parish (ie a parish comprises about 2-3 villages), fielding of at least ¾ of MPs in available constituencies.

SECURITY STATUS
All stakeholders including the general public are expectant of a degree of violence to mark this election. The evidence is this:

(i) By Museveni saying he won’t accept a result not favoring him he is implying resorting to violence or at least allowing the military to takeover rather than conceding to any of his rivals. This is because he fears for possible reprisals or imprisonment once he loses the presidential immunity.

(ii) By Mbabazi telling voters to help him only protect the ballots at village level, he is implying he has a mechanism even inside the electoral commission to handle the ballots as he wishes and therefore this makes his unfriendly forces like the police chief to prepare a show-down with him.

(iii) By Besigye forming vigilant groups he is preparing the population to engage into a people’s power of taking power in similar model of northern Africa’s Arab spring.

(iv) By police training a huge militia under the umbrella of crime preventers they are preparing the population to fight among themselves using crude instruments like clubs and marshal art skills—so that the population is intimidated from holding massive protests. In one way, the police chief expects the ultimate poll results not to be out rightly favorable for Museveni.

ECONOMIC STATUS
As noted, the economy is already suffering high inflation and with the nomination of MP candidates it’s going to increase well into the last half of the 2015/16 fiscal year in June.

This has forced the central bank to increase the bank rate so that it can quell on the liquidity. But this offers little as the potentiality of counterfeit currency notes is also imminent. Because of low investment and there hoarding of the dollar, the exchange rate will remain volatile.

OUTLOOK
(I) Violence is certain because all sides have planned it as a strategy.

(II) Military intervention is certain and has already been hinted on by the minister for information Rtd Brig and first ISO director in this government, Jim Muwhezi.

(III) Military intervention may not quell people’s power because the rank and file of the army is known to be partisan in favour of Museveni.

(IV) External intervention to stop the violence—as it’s about to happen in Burundi is certain.

(V) Ultimately a new government of national unity will be formed under the auspices of the AU supported by UN and western powers.

(VI) The economy will remain unstable up till July 2016.