museveni wins again

Uganda has being under the leadership of Yoweri Kaguta Museveni for the last 20 years. Museveni won the general elections early this year with a vote of 61% of the total cast votes. According to the constitution of the republic of Uganda, a candidate shall not be declared elected president of that country if the votes are not in favor of the candidate. A candidate has to obtain the highest number of votes casted. The constitution also provides that if a candidate fails to get the expected percentage of votes, a second election should be held within 30 days after the announcement of results.

The same constitution also allows one to hold office for more than one term as it is in most of the democratic countries. A person can be a president more than one time; he or she can vie for the presidential seat after completing the first term of five years. 48hours from the closure of the of the polling that the electoral commission should declare the president through writing and publish it with its seal.The president should assume office within 24hours from which the term of the predecessor expires.

Uganda elections were held early this year on February and Museveni emerged as the winner over his opponent Kizza Besigye Kifefe who is the leader of opposition in that country. Besigye denounced the results of the elections claiming that they are the most fraudulent electoral process ever in Uganda. Kizza Besigye since then has received torture from Yoweri Museveni’s government for not accepting defeat; the opposition leader has not enjoyed any peace since then for months now because he had been detained with his soldiers surrounding his homestead. Besigye has also being arrested several times. Besigye was the personal doctor of Museveni thereafter and he seems to be a threat to Museveni and his government since he knows all the weaknesses of Museveni in terms of health and therefore I would say Besigye is not fit to be YOweri Museveni’s opponent. Since a person knows all your weak points in any way, you are not supposed to be enemies since he or she can bring you down easily.

After the elections were held in Uganda and results were out, Kizza Besigye and Mbabazi who is another presidential contester went to the supreme supreme court to challenge the results of the elections. They claimed that the elections were not free and fair because the citizens had to wait for more than five hours queuing to cast their votes. The elections were delayed which is an extra ordinary thing because I don’t think most democratic countries will accommodate for that. The social media was also closed down and there was no communication going on in Uganda. The citizens and the media were denied their freedom to express their views with other people, that is a fact which only exists in non-democratic countries not a country like Uganda which is democratic.

Just recently,a video surfaced on the social media platforms with pictures of Besyige being sworn in presided over by his party members and his supporters keenly following wearing bright faces which might be symbolizing brighter days for Ugandans  i future but we don't know. This happened just a day from when the official inauguration ceremony of his excellency was to beheld.                                                                               

It is rather unfortunate that Besigye voted and later arrested for trying to access command center in Naguru neighborhood of Kampala. Even though the opposition leaders are always seen to be against and opposing the government, they are also leaders and if the other side of the government is not exercising its rule properly, the opposition side should be given the priority to rule.  

DEMAND BY PEOPLE OF RWANDA

President Paul Kagame of Rwanda has said he did not want to stand for another but had to bow to the pressure and demands of the people of Rwanda.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum on Africa (WEF) in Kigali on Wednesday, Kagame said the people of Rwanda were not interested in letting him go once his two-year term came to an end.

“By the way, I did not ask for this thing (third term),” Kagame said while responding to a question from Mr. Tony Blair the former British Prime Minister who was chairing a panel discussion at WEF.

Credited for the transformation of Rwanda from the 1994 genocide, Kagame also said the people within his own party also did not want him to leave. He further added that he knew any decision to change the constitution could be a subject of international condemnation.

“I was actually trying to tell my people – You know what, there is room. Why don’t you find someone else,” Kagame said. Adding “They kept saying no; we are not ready to take the risk on someone else.”

This, he said put him in a situation where it was becoming a hard decision to make, describing it more like “it was like putting me in a cage.” Rwandans head to the polls next year where it is widely expected that Kagame will be re-elected for a seven-year term.

A referendum held in December 2015, about 6.5 million people – 98 percent of all votes cast - gave way to the amendment to the Constitution, allowing Kagame to stand for another term.

He said such a decision for him to leave power is in the hands of the people of Rwanda and not pressure from international community.

At the same panel discussion, Mr. Howard Buffet, an American businessman and Philanthropist said that “If we did not think President Kagame was going to be here for another seven years, we wouldn’t consider being here (Rwanda).”

US TOP OFFICIAL AHEAD OF SWEARING IN OF NEW PRESIDENTIAL ELECT

S government official will join African presidents today as president-elect, Yoweri Museveni swears in for a fifth five-year elective term at Kololo Independence Grounds in Kampala.

Ambassador Bruce Wharton, the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for African Affairs with the US Department of State, will attend the swearing in celebrations despite persistent criticism of the February 18 elections and the post-election environment by the Washington administration.

The US, among other countries, noted that the polls were “deeply inconsistent with international standards and expectations for any democratic process “while the US’ Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ms Samantha Power, said “Mr Museveni is a threat to Uganda’s future stability”.

By press time yesterday, presidents John Pombe Magufuli (Tanzania), Edgar Lungu (Zambia), Prime Minister of Swaziland Dr Sibusiso Barnabas Dlamini, King Letsie III of Lesotho and the Cameroonian Premier Philémon Yang and Niger President Mahamadou Issoufou, Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe, Mr Idriss Deby, the President of Chad, Mali’s Ibrahim Boubabacar and Chad’s Idris D’by and Teodoro Obiang of Equatorial Guinea had arrived.

The Presidents were treated to a State dinner at Speke Resort Munyoonyo last evening.

Notable absentees from today’s ceremony will be President Paul Kagame (Rwanda), Uhuru Kenyatta (Kenya) with the duo attending the ongoing World Economic Forum summit in Kigali and Nigeria’s Muhammadu Buhari, who is attending an anti-corruption event in London, UK.

President Magufuli arrived amid a heavy downpour. Mr Magufuli, who became a political sensation in Africa after winning Tanzania’s election in October last year, was treated to a 21-gun salute at State House Entebbe.

On his part, Zambian President Edgar Lungu urged the Opposition to “change tactics” and “accept defeat”, remarks that will clearly upset Mr Museveni’s opponents who still reject results of the elections.

Mr Lungu used a football anecdote to argue that if a football team fields a striker who does not deliver, a substitution is called for.

ANOTHER TERM FOR MUSEVENI

drive into Kampala on Thursday to attend President Museveni’s swearing-in ceremony will find the main road from Entebbe International Airport cleared of all regular traffic and manned by soldiers, some carrying machine guns.

This is, in part, to save foreign dignitaries from the nightmare of traffic jams in Uganda’s capital. Mostly, however, it is also to avoid a repeat of events exactly five years ago when crowds of enthusiastic supporters jammed the road to welcome home Opposition leader Kizza Besigye from a Nairobi hospital where he had been admitted after being brutally arrested while protesting the outcome of the 2011 election.

The Opposition leader’s crowds, which took up the whole day covering the 38-kilometre route into the city and fighting running battles with the police, was uncomfortable evidence of another centre of power in the country, particularly in urban areas.

Little has changed in five years. Dr Besigye, who received 35.61 per cent to Museveni’s 60.62 per cent in the latest contest, in February, rejected the official results from the Electoral Commission, claimed he had won the election with around 52 per cent, and has called for public protests to force an independent international audit of the election.

The government has rejected the calls citing the lack of a legal basis for such an audit. It also points to a Supreme Court ruling that unanimously rejected a petition filed by former Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi who came third in the race with an underwhelming 1.78 per cent of the total vote.

The Opposition FDC party has also not presented any evidence to back up Dr Besigye’s claim of 52 per cent, although election observers noted widespread irregularities, including in the counting and tallying of results, ballot stuffing, intimidation, and the disenfranchisement of voters in Opposition strongholds.

Swearing in for the sixth time since taking power in 1986 (fifth after a general election), Mr Museveni should be at the zenith of his power. He remains firmly in charge of the military where his son, Brig Muhoozi Kainerugaba, heads the Special Forces Command, and his purge of Mbabazi and his loyalists from the NRM left the ruling party firmly under his thumb.

The Constitution gives the President power to appoint all manner of officials and the length of his tenure is such that loyalists occupy most if not all key positions.

In Parliament, the NRM comfortably won a supermajority, giving it considerably more than the two-thirds necessary to amend the Constitution (the Opposition failed to field candidates in 91 out of 402 constituencies), and won three out of every four district races.

Cracks in power
President Museveni recently ordered an investigation and the suspension of Energy ministry officials after cracks were discovered in two hydropower dams under construction at Isimba and Karuma on the River Nile. It was a powerful metaphor about cracks in the incumbent’s own power.

The President had earlier awarded tenders to build the dams to two rival Chinese construction firms after the fight between rival commission agents, including some close to his family, reached his desk.

What might have appeared like a Solomonic decision then was not only in violation of public procurement rules as Uganda’s Auditor General recently noted, but also gave the projects a presidential imprimatur strong enough to shield them from bureaucratic supervision, but, as it now turns out, not strong enough to hold the concrete together.

Mr Museveni’s strong grip on the State is now undergoing a stress test. The court ruling might have confirmed Mr Museveni’s legal re-election, but not necessarily his legitimacy on the streets and among Opposition supporters, especially in urban areas, who continue to refer to Dr Besigye as “the people’s president”.

Frustrated and unwilling to bow to pressure calling for dialogue or a Big Church government of national unity, the government’s response to Opposition calls for protests has grown increasingly intolerant. Besigye and other Opposition leaders have been arrested or kept under house arrest, journalists threatened and arrested, including during live broadcasts.

“In some ways, this is nothing new,” Human Rights Watch said in a statement released ahead of the swearing-in. “Ugandan security forces have regularly relied on bullets, teargas, ‘preventive detention’ of Opposition leaders, and endless fear-mongering to silence government critics.”

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