Andres Sjogren (2025), writing in the Daily Monitor of January 11 2025 under the title “Why Elections in Uganda are Ritualistic Coronation” did not see elections conducted by the National Resistance Movement as adding any value to the democratization process in Uganda.

The impression that the organizers of the elections have all along wanted to create is that Ugandans endorse the continued hold onto power by President Tibuhaburwa Museveni yet they know that the elections have no role in determining his rule, and that they have been depriving the citizens of the right to genuinely determine the leadership and governance of Uganda because the electoral process has been tightly captured, militarized and manipulated to produce results favourable to the President. They have, therefore, been deceptive elections.

Indeed, the President once stated, while campaigning in Seeta, Mukono in 1996, that a ballot, a mere piece of paper, cannot remove him from power. He added that he was like a quarter pin of a bicycle, which goes in by hitting and comes out by hitting.

Therefore, when Sjogren says the elections in Uganda are ritualistic coronation of the President he is right. Characteristically, the elections have only changed those who support the President’s rule and gain from it, recycled some, and brought in a miniscule of those who insist that they are in the Opposition, but many of whom have had their consciences bought and made to work for President Museveni and against the people’s wish for change.

This is the reason why Sserwada Erisa (2021), in his article “Elections without Democracy: A Case Study of Uganda,” published by Quest Journals: Journal of Research in Humanities and Social Science, Volume 9, Issue 5, believed that the elections in Uganda do not add any value to the democratization process for they are only about President Tibuhaburwa Museveni. They have become extremely expensive for the taxpayers of Uganda, yet they are organized not to bring about change in the leadership and governance of Uganda.

If it were van  Wyk (2007), the writer of “Political Leaders in Africa: Patrons or Profiteers?”, published in Accord Occasional Paper Series, Vol. 2 No. 1., he would probably submit that President Tibuhaburwa Museveni is both a patron and profiteer, and argue that he is currently talking about “protecting our gains” these days because patronage and profiteering have made him and those connected to him ethnically and politically to acquire everything (power, glory, money, wealth) at the expense of the supersonically impoverished majority of Ugandans.

It is extremely difficult to find people in Uganda who are wealthy that are not within President Tibuhaburwa Museveni’s patronage chain. It is a system of patrons and Profiteers at different levels. Those outside it are frequently stifled and disabled so that power, money and wealth remain in a few hands of closely related people.

President Tibuhaburwa Museveni’s personalist party, the National Resistance Movement (NRM), has served, since 1986, more to stupefy Ugandans into believing that they are participating in the politics of the country, yet its role has emerged to be legitimizing presidential power at the expense of genuine power to the extent of institutionalizing presidentialism for patronage and profiteering, largely in his favor a Mafia caste that has grown around and encircled the aging, almost making him a “prisoner” President.

This, to a large extent, explains why the military is at the centre of the electoral processes.  It has less to do with peace and security and more to do with President Tibuhaburwa Museveni and the Mafia benefiting from his system. It will take decades to dismantle this exploitative, thieving system, which is now talking of “protecting our gains”.

In a way, without President Tibuhaburwa Museveni being at the centre of the peace and security enterprise in Uganda for the last nearly 40 or so years, there would be nothing like this to talk about. He has made himself indispensable. Indeed, one time in 1997, he told Wafula Oguttu’s newspaper, the defunct The Monitor, that when he leaves power, Uganda will be ungovernable.

I began getting interested in the military leadership and governance in Uganda in the early 1990s, when the Makerere University Students Guild (MUDG) organized a talk for me in the University Hall Quadrangle. The topic the Guild wanted me to address was “The Militarization of Politics in Uganda”.

During my talk, which was attended by over 7000 people, including many from outside the Ivory Tower, I stated that if Ugandans allowed the military to continue being at the centre of the country’s politics, soldiers would make civilians play second fiddle to them; that demilitarizing politics would be extremely difficult in future; and that civil society would find it difficult to reclaim its power and authority from the military.

Indeed,  as I wrote in one article (see below), the military has ended up capturing every civic space in the country, so that drawing a boundary between the military and civility is now next to impossible. Also, as I once wrote in an another article even justice has been militarily captured.

In this article I aver and contend that even the electoral process in Uganda has been captured to the extent that it is difficult to extricate the army and militarized police from any stage of the process. Therefore, not only are the voters manipulated by the army and the militarized police, but the entire process is virtually in the hands of the army, including tallying the final results, to ensure that ultimately it is the ruling party and its perennial sole presidential candidate that triumph every five years when elections are held.. The situation is confounded by the fact that unlike in other countries where incumbents step aside during elections and just manifest as candidates, in Uganda the incumbent stays put, conducting government business and commanding the armed forces as Commander-in-Chief, issuing the soldiers with orders of how to conduct themselves towards civilians and his challengers.

Unlike before independence, when a polling station would be manned by one administration policeman with just a stick, today it is manned by a number of soldiers and militarized policemen with guns. These then carry the ballot boxes to the tallying centres, where heavy reinforcements are expectedly found.

There is a persistent claim that at the final tallying centre in Kampala, it is soldiers who, behind the scenes, determine the winners and the losers. The claim goes adds that they give their determinations to the Chairman of the Electoral Commission to read out to the public the winners and losers

To show how militarized the electoral processes are one only needs to focus on the videos produced by the media during Kyagulanyi Ssentamu alias Bobi Wine’s presidential campaigns. His campaigns are over-militarized.  In 2021, his campaign in my District of Luuka, over 80 people were reportedly shot down by the combined force of UPDF, Special Forces Command and the militarized police.

In Iganga Municipality, despite an impressively peaceful campaign rally on the 28th November 2025, one person was shot dead and three others were injured shots from the gun of sn errants soldier-cum-policeman, reportedly without any provocation by the people.This confirmed that elections in general and democracy in particular are still driven by the gun. Therefore, electoral democracy is not just ritualistic but deceptive.

There is no doubt that when Kyagulanyi’s People Power and President Tibuhaburwa Museveni’s Gun power meet blood is likely to flow. They are bad bedfellows. The people with the gun are people of no change who believe that every election must go their way. The people of People Power are for change and now believe that they are empowered enough, by themselves, to resist Gun Power in a major face-to-face confrontation. We don’t know what will happen in future because, definitely, the people of People Power by far outnumber those of Gun Power.

What has frequently happened since 1996, when President Tibuhaburwa Museveni offered himself to electoral politics, is that violence against Ugandans, has been premeditated and reigned upon even peaceful civilians seeking to exercise their right to vote and decide the destiny of their country.

This has occurred every five years keeping with President Tibuhaburwa Museveni’s long-term belief that a mere piece of paper cannot remove him from power. Despite this, there are still many Ugandans that still believe that the ballot paper, rather than violence, can usher in the desired change of building a democratic society. Unfortunately, it is unlikely. I believe it explains what the rulers from the bush used to tell us during the intellectual debates of the 1990s that democracy is expensive. Indeed, it has been because it has been undermined by the commitment of the President to retaining power at all costs. Democracy is in crisis in Uganda because of State violence; not because of the violence of civilians.

I have written a number of articles linking the National Resistance Movement (NRM), the militarization of society and State violence in Uganda and the Great Lakes Region. Indeed, the supremo of NRM, President Tibuhaburwa Museveni, has more than once declared that he is the Master of Violence. This has not only been seen to be true in Uganda but also in Great Lakes Region. His name, and person, have been at the centre of every major sociopolical conflict in both Uganda and the Great Lakes Region.

Violence has been pursued by the military and militarized police as superior to negotiation and agreement. It has always been the ultimate choice of the politico-military regime in Uganda, even in peace time. Therefore, violence in peace time is ever the only alternative choice. Unfortunately, violent attitudes are responsible for creating conflict hotspots of chaos that often end up destroying what has been built, thereby assigning a country or region in the country in state of continuous underdevelopment, at very high cost to the taxpayers .

Having laboured to explain the centrality of army and militarized police in the presidential elections in Uganda and its consequences, let me end the article with mentioning some of my earlier writings to help the reader be up-to-date with my thoughts on violence in Uganda and the Great Lakes Region.

Recently I wrote an article with the title ” Why did Rwandese Tutsi refugees Predominantly Participate in the Luwero Rebellion in Uganda?” The Tell Media of Kenya published the article under the title “After Rwandan Tutsi Refugees Installed Museveni in Uganda, there is Suspicion They Want to Reign in the Great Lakes Region, Genetically”. The article is all about violence as a tool of power acquisition and retention at all costs.

My earlier articles include:

1. Understanding Security in Regional-National Military Policy in the Great Lakes Region. Charmar News, March 27 2025.

2. Why UGANDA’S Insecure President Made Daughter Natasha Presidential Assistant in Charge of Household at State House. Tell Media, May 6 2025.

3. Military Politics, Democratic Deception and Democratic Disguise in Uganda. Charmar News, March 26 2025.

4.: Disappearance of Police in Uganda Police: The Dangers. Daily Monitor, February 11 2022.

5. Why is Uganda Likely to be Ungovernable beyond President Tibuhaburwa Museveni. Charmar News, April 3 2025.

6. The Emergence of Electoral Authoritarianism in Uganda: 1996 to Present. Muwado, June 9 2025.

7. The Supremacy and Sovereignty of Uganda’s Military in the Past and Present. Watchdog News, December 31 2025.

8. Role of Presidentialism in Uganda. Daily Monitor, March 5 2022.

9. The Role of African Rulers in Institutionalized Violence in Africa. The Kampala Report, May 4 2023.

10. Military Capture of Uganda’s Civic Space Yesterday and Today. Uganda Today, March 25

2024

11. How Militarized and Personalist Parties

Undermine Democratiztion : Uganda’s National Resistance Movement in Perspective. Charmar News, March 18 2025.

12. The Place of Political Militarism in the Governance of Uganda, Daily Express, May 30 2025.

13.What it Means to Liberate Justice from the Military in Uganda. Ultimate News, February 3 2025.

14. Uganda Towards a New Monarchized Military: Soldier King in the Making. Muwado, June 9 2025.

15. From Hereditary Chiefs and Kings to Hereditary Politicians. Ultimate News, April 29 2022.

16. The Undeclared War Between the Militarists and Writers. Watchdog News, February, 16 2022.

17. State Terrorism in Uganda Before, During and After Elections.Ultimate News, March 25 2025.

18. How Dictators Legitimize themselves and Consolidate they Power. Ultimate News, May 23 2025.

Further Reading

1. Andres Sjogren (2025).  Why Elections in Uganda are Ritualized Coronation. Daily Monitor, June 11 2025.

2. Sserwada Erisa  (2021). Elections without Democracy: A Case Study of Uganda. Quest Journals. Journal of Research in Humanities and Social Science, Vol  9 Issue 5.

3. van Wyk (2007). Political Leaders in Africa: President’s, Patrons or Profiteers? GSDRC Applied K owlesge Services.

Further reading

1. Andres Sjogren (2025).  Why Elections in Uganda are Ritualized Coronation. Daily Monitor, June 11 2025.

2. Sserwada Erisa (2021). Elections without Democracy: A Case Study of Uganda. Quest Journals. Journal of Research in Humanities and Social Science, Vol 9 Issue 5.

3. van Wyk (2007). Political Leaders in Africa: President’s, Patrons or Profiteers? GSDRC Applied Knowledge Services.

For God and my country.

• A Tell report / By Oweyegha-Afunaduula / Environmental Historian and Conservationist Centre for Critical Thinking and Alternative Analysis (CCTAA), Seeta, Mukono, Uganda.

About the Centre for Critical Thinking and Alternative Analysis (CCTAA)

The CCTAA was innovated by Hyuha Mukwanason, Oweyegha-Afunaduula and Mahir Balunywa in 2019 to the rising decline in the capacity of graduates in Uganda and beyond to engage in critical thinking and reason coherently besides excellence in academics and academic production. The three scholars were convinced that after academic achievement the world outside the ivory tower needed graduates that can think critically and reason coherently towards making society and the environment better for human gratification. They reasoned between themselves and reached the conclusion that disciplinary education did not only narrow the thinking and reasoning of those exposed to it but restricted the opportunity to excel in critical thinking and reasoning, which are the ultimate aim of education. They were dismayed by the truism that the products of disciplinary education find it difficult to tick outside the boundaries of their disciplines; that when they provide solutions to problems that do not recognise the artificial boundaries between knowledges, their solutions become the new problems. They decided that the answer was a new and different medium of learning and innovating, which they characterised as “The Centre for Critical Thinking and Alternative Analysis” (CCTAA).