Uganda
A long-standing leader's mixed legacy
Apr 14th 2005 | KAMPALA
From The Economist print edition
Uganda's president, Yoweri Museveni, thinks he is the man to safeguard his own admirable legacy. Is he?
THE man who brought peace and growth to Uganda, President Yoweri Museveni, has been in power for 19 years. The constitution says he must retire next year, but his supporters are clamouring for him to stay. Parliament may amend the constitution to allow him to. Is this a good idea? How many rulers, anywhere, have done a good job during their third decade at the helm?
“Lee Kuan Yew,” offers Moses Byaruhanga, an adviser to Mr Museveni. Good answer. Anyone else? “Julius Nyerere,” offers Sam Kutesa, Mr Museveni's foreign minister. This is less convincing. The leader of Tanzania (and earlier, Tanganyika) between 1961 and 1985 may have united his country, but he also bankrupted it by forcing peasants into collectives. And the world's longest-serving heads of government are almost uniformly awful. Africa's senior five are true dinosaurs: Omar Bongo of Gabon, Muammar Qaddafi of Libya, José Eduardo dos Santos of Angola, Teodoro Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea and Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe.
His supporters insist that Mr Museveni will be different. To be fair, his record so far has been impressive. When he seized power in 1986 Uganda was a wreck, having endured a decade-and-a-half of murderous tyranny and civil war under Presidents Idi Amin and Milton Obote. Mr Museveni restored order. His pragmatic, business-friendly policies unleashed a sustained economic boom. And his government has had more success than any other in curbing AIDS. Small wonder that western donors love Uganda.
Those donors have complaints, however. Although Mr Museveni allows a reasonably free press, he has long suppressed multi-party politics. His excuse was always that parties would be tribal, and therefore dangerously divisive. In 2003, under pressure from donors, he relented and said he would lift restrictions on parties. Various parties now operate a bit more freely. Parliament, which is dominated by Mr Museveni's National Resistance Movement, is expected to vote soon on whether formally to adopt a multi-party system. Well and good, but Mr Museveni's people are also hoping to take this opportunity to get rid of presidential-term limits. Voters who want more political freedom may also have to accept that Mr Museveni can keep on running.
Mr Museveni's spokespeople say he has not yet decided whether to run again, but the masses, who drape themselves in dry banana leaves to show their support, are eager for him to carry on. That's a little disingenuous: Mr Museveni has sidelined former allies who advised him to retire, and he has not picked a successor.
Donors are worried. This matters, since aid inflows are equivalent to about half of the government's budget. Mr Museveni talks of the need for Uganda to wean itself off aid, but he has shown few signs of turning down the cash. The economy continues to grow quite fast; a recent slowing was largely due to unfavourable coffee and oil prices. But if donors were to grow disillusioned and turn off the taps, the shock would be immense.
Regimes that stay in power too long are usually corrupted. Mr Museveni's is nowhere near as bad as its predecessors, but neither is it a paragon. The public payroll is bloated, as is the cabinet. Voters, especially rural ones, expect cash handouts before elections. In April, Mr Museveni promised to curb corruption in the army, where what he called “weevil” officers pocket salaries of soldiers who are dead or have deserted. Amama Mbabazi, the defence minister, says that the army has now been all but purged of such “ghosts”, and that the officers responsible will be punished even if they have political connections.
Another concern is that even if the laws governing political dissent grow more liberal, the state's attitude to dissidents is often anything but. Human Rights Watch (HRW), a lobby group, reported last year that opposition activists were routinely tortured. Typically, they were taken to secret “safe houses” and beaten with hammers or forced to lie under running taps with their mouths open. An informal survey at one prison where “political” prisoners are held indicated that 90% had been tortured, according to HRW. Mr Kutesa dismisses the allegations and denies that the government tortures anyone.
Even Mr Museveni's approach to fighting AIDS has come under fire. HRW claims that, under pressure from the United States, Uganda has forsaken the old, successful message of “ABC” (Abstain, or Be faithful, or use a Condom). Instead, HRW says, the government now emphasises abstinence above all else. Ugandan evangelicals, including Mr Museveni's wife, campaign against condoms, arguing that their promotion encourages promiscuity. But the government denies that it has abandoned condoms or changed what it calls a balanced policy.
Thanks to stability and Mr Museveni's liberal economic policies, the proportion of Ugandans living in absolute poverty fell from over 50% in 1994 to 33% in 2000. However, it then crept back up to 38% by 2003. Two out of three Ugandans still depend on subsistence farming, and fewer than one in ten have electricity. A 19-year-old rebel insurgency continues to blight the north of the country, which Mr Museveni has been unable to quell despite hefty military spending.
Even Mr Museveni's admirers wonder whether he is the right man to safeguard his own legacy. Last month, Bob Geldof, a former rock star who now campaigns for more aid to Africa, said: “Get a grip Museveni, your time is up. Go away.” Outraged demonstrators in Kampala, the Ugandan capital, advised Mr Geldof to sober up and shut up, adding that Ugandans rejected “drug addicts and rock homos” (an inaccurate description of Mr Geldof). But other demonstrators applauded the rocker. The government has said it wants no more demonstrations for a while.
Copyright © 2005 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group. All rights reserved. also see: www.bobgeldof.info
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