Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni knows how to take down a rival. The wreckage of various careers are scattered across his 33-year rule—politicians and military officers, unwilling to bend to his will or accept his largesse, who were derailed by well-timed scandals, arrests or worse. But with the detention and apparent torture this month of 36-year-old pop star-turned-politician Robert Kyagulanyi, better known to Ugandans as Bobi Wine, has Museveni finally overreached?
Over more than three decades, Museveni has faced only one legitimate political challenger. Kizza Besigye was part of Museveni’s National Resistance Movement, or NRM, during the Bush War that brought him to power in 1986 and served in the early days of the subsequent administration. Accusing Museveni of slipping into dictatorship, Besigye challenged him for the presidency in 2001 and in every election since. He lost each time, often under the shadow of questionable vote-counting.
When not manipulating elections, Museveni’s regime has turned to violence and intimidation to control Besigye and limit his activities. Security forces have beaten him and shot him with rubber bullets. He has been arrested countless times and is under constant surveillance. And while the treatment has sparked outrage and international censure, it has essentially worked for Museveni by helping prevent Besigye from galvanizing a movement that could upend his regime.
Now, faced with Kyagulanyi’s rapid political rise, Museveni's forces are utilizing the same tactics. It is not a given, though, that they will have the same result.
Kyagulanyi, who has dubbed himself the “ghetto president,” made his name as the voice of Uganda’s young, poor and dispossessed. Uganda is one of the youngest countries in the world, and the vast majority of its citizens have only known Museveni as their president. Kyagulanyi’s songs speak to the generation of youth who grew up under a regime that promised that if they studied and worked hard, they would have opportunities well beyond previous generations. So they finished school and flooded Uganda’s cities, only to find that the jobs they had been promised didn’t exist.
Kyagulanyi reflected this growing disenchantment back to his listeners, who rewarded him with an easy victory when he decided to run in a 2017 by-election for a parliamentary seat in central Uganda.
Uganda’s parliament is replete with politicians who blasted the NRM on the campaign trail and then went dutifully silent as they entered office. But Kyagulanyi doubled down, taking the lead in unsuccessful efforts to block the lifting of presidential age limits, which removed the last constitutional barrier to Museveni’s lifetime hold on the presidency. He also fought to reverse a tax on the use of social media platforms like Facebook and WhatsApp, a Museveni-backed move which seemed specifically designed to prevent poor Ugandans from participating in the country’s political debates, which increasingly play out online.
What makes Kyagulanyi dangerous to the regime is also what could be his undoing.
Kyagulanyi’s greatest sin in the eyes of the administration, though, was his ability to push other opposition candidates to victory in a wave of by-elections earlier this year. He was attempting to strike again earlier this month when he traveled to Arua, a town on the northwest edge of Uganda, ahead of the vote in another parliamentary race.
Museveni also came to town on behalf of the NRM candidate, but according to officials, rock-wielding antagonists attacked his convoy. Security forces responded violently: Kyagulanyi’s driver was shot and killed and—in a move reminiscent of the regime’s treatment of Besigye—Kyagulanyi was detained, charged with treason and apparently tortured, alongside dozens of others.
His detention prompted international outcry and, more critically in the eyes of the Museveni administration, domestic protests including walk-outs among school students. Days of legal wrangling ensued—another hallmark of the Museveni regime, which attempts to sap opponents of their ability to mobilize by dragging them through endless, confusing legal proceedings. Kyagulanyi saw his charges changed to illegal possession of a firearm before a military court dropped the case entirely, claiming it had no jurisdiction. Security officials immediately re-arrested him on treason charges, this time to be heard by a civilian court. He is currently out on bail.
Kyagulanyi’s supporters have maintained the pressure on the regime throughout his ordeal, and Museveni is floundering. The 74-year-old president has called reports that Kyagulanyi was tortured “fake news,” even as images of the severely injured “ghetto president” air live on Ugandan television. And few NRM politicians are rushing to defend the government’s actions.
Contrast that with another trial that recently kicked off in Uganda, of Kale Kayihura, the former inspector general of the police. A long-time Museveni confidante from the days of the Bush War, Kayihura fell out of favor and—like former allies before him—finds himself on trial for what appear to be politically expedient offenses. Namely, he allegedly failed “to protect war materials” and assisted in the kidnapping of Rwandan nationals from Uganda.
If he wanted, Kayihura could unearth many skeletons from Museveni’s three-decade rule, but he has kept his silence. There is no telling, after all, what Museveni has on him, or what he and his family stand to lose if he talks. Instead, Kayihura is looking at a sentence, some jail time and, eventually if he plays along, possible redemption.
The Kayihura trial reflects the image Museveni is determined to project: unassailable control. Kyagulanyi, who owes Museveni nothing, threatens to shatter that image and reveal to a growing constituency of disaffected young people that the NRM’s hold on power perhaps isn’t so absolute.
What makes Kyagulanyi dangerous to the regime, though, is also what could be his undoing. His independence has allowed him to develop a kind of cult of personality, but not an entrenched movement. This was also one of Besigye’s flaws. Though he formed an opposition party, the Forum for Democratic Change, or FDC, and even stepped down as its leader, it is still tethered to his personality. The regime learned that if it can marginalize Besigye, then the FDC is effectively hamstrung.
Kyagulanyi appears to have learned this lesson, actively seeking to broaden his political base by stumping for other candidates, but he hasn’t had enough time to solidify a viable opposition movement. That may have been part of Museveni’s calculation in striking against him now.
Freshly out on bail and recovering from his injuries, it will now be up to Kyagulanyi to decide how to handle the confrontation with the regime. His supporters are galvanized, and he has immense international goodwill that he could leverage for financial support, if he is actually interested in developing the kind of challenge that Museveni’s 33-year regime has never seen.
*Andrew Green is a freelance journalist based in Berlin. He writes regularly about health and human rights issues. You can view more of his work at www.theandrewgreen.com.
