Uganda elections a sham

Mmegi Editor | Tuesday February 23, 2016 12:53

The run-up to the elections was characterised by violence, especially against opposition parties and in particular the leader of the main Forum for Democratic Change, Kizza Besigye.

He has been a constant feature for the last two elections when pictures of him being thrown into the back of a police van were splashed on news media. At some point he broke his arm during a police brutal attack.

Two weeks before the elections, Besugye was denied an opportunity to hold a motorcade on grounds that his motorcade was going to cause traffic congestion in some parts of Kampala. He was detained and released at a later stage to ensure that his campaign rally did not take place.

On the day of the elections, the government took the clamp down further and shut down social media to make sure that there was very limited communication among Ugandans and also arrested the leader of opposition. The election results were ultimately released and Yoweri Museveni emerged winner for a fifth term in office.

Of course he immediately got congratulations and commendations from his counterparts in neighbouring states of Kenya, Rwanda and others.

To this day, the African Union (AU) has not uttered a word condemning the violent treatment of opposition activists and their leader’s unexplained detention.

The weekend elections in Uganda are a resemblance of what transpired in Zimbabwe in 2008 and 2013 when opposition activists were murdered and when the voter’s roll was found littered with names of dead people.

The world watched with disbelief as Zimbabwe ruling party activists, with the support of the government of Robert Mugabe butchered their opponents, burnt down their houses and displaced them.

Only a few voices were raised against this injustice and condemned the elections as a circus, whilst SADC and the AU found nothing untoward about them. Mugabe was later to chair both the AU and SADC at the same time. This month the veteran leader will be celebrating his 92nd birthday and he has already indicated his desire to contest the 2018 elections.

As for Museveni, we hope that the AU will find it proper to condemn or commend when necessary. We believe that the AU still has time to speak against injustices that often contaminate African elections and the continent’s democracy. It is high time we appreciate and learn from our brothers who lost elections and gave way for the people’s preferred leaders without any bloodshed in the likes of Nigeria, Zambia, Ghana and Mozambique among others.