Africabeat

On Wednesday, Museveni announced a ban all public demonstrations in the capital, Kampala.

Supporters of Kizza Besigye, President Yoweri Museveni’s opponent in the 2001 presidential election, have been staging protests against Besigye’s recent arrest and imprisonment. After returning from four years in exile, Besigye was charged with treason and rape. If found guilty of treason, Besigye could face the death penalty.

The ban on demonstrations, as part of a larger pattern of tightening political controls, raises some serious questions about the future of democracy in Uganda.

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Just in case there was any doubt, Museveni has announced his intention to stand for reelection in March. Up until now, Museveni’s leadership has made Uganda one of the region’s success stories. His refusal to step down threatens to tear all that apart.

News articles:

"Uganda’s president to stand again" BBC News

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africa, politics, Uganda, Museveni, election

Upcoming elections in Liberia and Uganda show how fragile democracy in Africa can be.

The economist v. the footballer

When Ellen Johnson Sirleaf
won Liberia’s first post-conflict presidential election I had two
reactions: One, hooray for an African nation for choosing capability
over celebrity, a World Bank Economist over a footballer, a woman over
a man. Two, how many European countries and countries where women enjoy
a lower social status than we apparently enjoy in the U.S. have to
elect women as heads of state before we can elect a non-Christian, let alone a woman, to the Presidency?

Her opponent, George Weah, continues to protest the election results (59%
to 41% in favor of Ms. Johnson Sirleaf – a 130,000 vote margin), even
though many prominent African heads of state and the international
community at large have declared the election free and
fair. Weah’s supporters refuse to be deterred and have continued to
protest in the streets of Monrovia as an election fraud inquiry begins.
So far they have not been able to provide evidence of
fraudulent votes numbering anything close to enough to narrow the gap between Weah and Johnson Sirleaf.

In well-institutionalized democracies, such a broad mandate would
likely silence any questioning about the election’s validity. Even when the
vote is much closer (as it was in the United States in 2000 and in
2004), there is a sense that if a loser contests the results, he is
crying over spilled milk. Losing parties quickly regroup so as to
maximize their influence as an opposition party and attempt to gain
ground in the next election.

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