The World Should Not Look Away From Uganda s Undemocratic Elections A man walks past a painting on the wall of the Ugandan electoral commission compound in Kampala, Uganda January 13, 2021 Baz Ratner / REUTERS January 14, 2021
Print A man walks past a painting on the wall of the Ugandan electoral commission compound in Kampala, Uganda January 13, 2021 Baz Ratner / REUTERS
Blog Post
Blog posts represent the views of CFR fellows and staff and not those of CFR, which takes no institutional positions.
On January 14, Uganda will hold national elections, an exercise that is shaping up to be more of an opportunity for incumbent President Yoweri Museveni to demonstrate the repressive power of the state than a chance for Uganda’s population to express its political will. Museveni, in power since 1986, has taken no chances. Several of his challengers, including the most prominent opposition leader, Bobi Wine, have been threatene
Uganda election, Museveni and Bobi Wine
Uganda election, Museveni and Bobi Wine
The people of Uganda came out en masse to exercise their franchise in the country’s general election (presidential and parliamentary) held on January 14, 2021.
The main focus was on the presidential election in which the incumbent President Yoweri Museveni of the National Resistance Movement (NRM) slugged it out with his major challenger, the candidate of the National Unity Platform, NUP, Robert Ssentamu Kyagulanyi aka Bobi Wine.
At the end of voting by the electorate in the presidential poll, which had nine other candidates, Uganda’s Electoral Commission chaired by Simon Mugenyi Byabakama, announced Museveni, the long-time Ugandan leader as the winner, having garnered a total vote of 5.85 million (58.64%) leaving Kyagulanyi with 3.48 million votes (34.83%).
Stashed inside pickup trucks and guarded by armed militias and jihadists, every year billions of illicit cigarettes wind their way through the lawless deserts of northern Mali bound for the Sahel and North Africa.
The profits from their long journey fuel north Mali’s many armed conflicts, lining the pockets of offshoots of al-Qaida and the so-called Islamic State (IS) group, as well as local militias, and corrupt state and military officials. This violence is now spilling out across West Africa, displacing more than two million people in Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, and Niger.
Cigarettes made by one of the world’s largest tobacco companies, British American Tobacco (BAT) and distributed with the help of another major, Imperial Brands, through a company partially owned by the Malian state, dominate this dirty and dangerous trade.
A court in Uganda on Monday ordered the military and police to leave the home of opposition politician Bobi Wine.
Wine, whose real name is Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, has been unable to leave his home since 14 January, when Ugandans voted in an election in which he was declared runner up to President Yoweri Museveni.
Ugandan authorities said Wine could only leave his home on the outskirts of the capital, Kampala, under military escort because they fear his presence in public could incite rioting and he could organise protests.
But a Ugandan judge said in the ruling that Wine’s home is not a proper detention facility and added that authorities should criminally charge him if he threatens public order.