Reply To: How Yoweri Museveni Cheated Elections

[Yoweri Museveni]

Earlier this week, Uganda’s inspector general of police, Kale Kayihura, was reported to have made three very serious statements.

First, that ‘they’ will not hand over power to an opposition that is up to no good other than undo the precious peace ‘they’ fought so hard to give to Ugandans. In this, Kayihura was restating his master’s stance.

Second, that the militia he has been training and passing out around the country will be handed rifles in place of sticks so they defend the peace of the country.

Third, that this militia – otherwise deceptively called ‘crime preventers’, an absurd concept that suggests a wall can be erected to prevent crime – has reached a staggering eleven million. Not even the great Red Army comes anywhere close.

If we had an accountable government, Gen Kayihura would promptly be relieved of his duties for uttering statements that are inflammatory, subversive, and grossly unbecoming of a public official, more so the head of a civilian institution charged with maintaining law and order.

The act of handing over power and deciding who has won or lost an election is hardly the business of the police, let alone a serving military officer.

But we are talking about Uganda here, where impunity reigns and misconduct is rewarded. I don’t know of any government anywhere in the world, with the remotest pretence to democratic governance, that has the head of police who is shamelessly partisan and an unabashed ruling party cadre.

Our current chief of defence forces, General Edward Katumba Wamala, is probably as loyal to his commander in chief and to the country as you can find. Yet he is unlikely to publicly spew such reckless statements.

The thing about General Kayihura is that he belongs to a coterie that is so sloshed with power and believes it has the ‘divine’ right to misrule us.

The import of the three statements noted above is to create fear and despondency, and ultimately procure a very low voter turnout on February 18. The calculation is straightforward.

Majority of those who would elect to stay away from the polling booth would likely vote against the incumbent. They will stay away, convinced that their vote won’t count.

But even more importantly, a good fraction of those who will not turn out to vote will be voted for, using the rigging machinery, part of which may involve the militia passing as ‘crime preventers’.

That’s the plot. It is the scheme which Kayihura’s scarecrow statements aimed to achieve. Aware of this nefarious scheme, the reaction of Ugandans hankering for change is to call a bluff on the threats and fearmongering.

For starters, the claim that Kayihura has trained eleven million ‘crime preventers’ should be treated as a big lie or at best a gross exaggeration intended to impress his master and create an alarming picture to Ugandans.

Uganda’s population is estimated at close to 35 million people. Given we are predominantly a young population with a very high birth rate, more than half of Ugandans are underage – below 18 years. But what Kayihura is telling us is that one out of every three Ugandans is a ‘crime preventer’!

The figure of fourteen million registered voters, which is contested, gives us another way around seeing the hollowness of there being eleven million ‘crime preventers’.

If we got an unlikely 80 per cent voter turnout, it will mean that practically every Ugandan appearing at the polling booth will be a ‘crime preventer’! It will be a vote by ‘crime preventers’.

One fact needs little belabouring: Kayihura has wrought enormous institutional damage on the Uganda police in his overzealous service of his master. The vast majority of police officers reside in the most appalling housing conditions, earn a paltry salary, and operate without the most basic facilities expected of a modern civilian, professional police force.

Yet huge budgetary resources, at the discretion of an activist and partisan IGP, are channelled towards fighting opponents of the sitting president and funding political mobilization for him.

This was impeccably revealed in the infamous tape recordings in 2014 when the IGP was on the loose cajoling and paying individuals not to support the then prime minister, now presidential candidate Amama Mbabazi.

But statements of desperation have recently come from others high up, including the man himself who is desperately clinging onto power. But very disappointing are statements attributed to the prime minister, Livingstone Ruhakana Rugundu, a man better known as Ndugu.

Apparently, Rugunda and his group will not hand over power if the opposition rigs the February 18 vote! This suggests that Rugunda believes the opposition is likely to commit electoral fraud.

His boss has said as much. But with an ‘independent’ Electoral Commission, padded with regime followers, and eleven million ‘crime preventers’ to boot, why should Ndugu Rugunda have any inkling that the opposition will rig the polls?

I should like to end by noting that I intended to write a letter to Dr Kizza Besigye, especially in the wake of the incident in Butambala district involving area MP Muhammad Muwanga Kivumbi. Something was simply not right. That letter will appear here soon…