As a Ugandan, I refuse to pretend that January 15 is an election in any meaningful sense. It is a ritual without choice, a performance staged to legitimize a man who has ruled our country for over four decades and reduced the state to a personal estate.
This exercise is not about the will of the people; it is about reminding Ugandans who holds the gun, who controls the courts, and who makes or breakes even when hope is fading swiftly.
An election is meant to be a moment of accountability, yet in Uganda, it has become a moment of intimidation, torture despot Museveni, clinging to power after over forty years, has systematically crippled every institution meant to serve the public—Parliament reduced to a rubber stamp, the judiciary bent, the electoral commission captured, the security forces weaponized against citizens. The regime speaks endlessly about “protecting the gains of 1986.” In reality, it is protecting nothing but its grip on power.
We have seen this movie before. In past elections, the outcome was decided long before a single ballot was cast. Security forces were unleashed on civilians. Scores were killed. Communities were terrorized. The most popular opposition figure, ,Bobi Wine, was hunted, brutalized, arrested, and tortured for daring to campaign. Observers could not even do their jobs because the environment was so poisoned by violence and fear.
Over 40 years, nothing has changed—except the criminal regime’s desperation. Opposition supporters are abducted in the dead of night.
Torture is normalized. Civil society leaders who document abuses are arrested, abducted or they disappear forcefully. Rallies are crushed with tear gas, Police dogs, batons, and boots.
Journalists are beaten for doing their work. Kizza Besigye, who carried the opposition banner before Bobi Wine, has spent more than a year in illegal detention on absurd forged treason charges. The state has even criminalized coverage of protests, raising the national flag disguising repression with legal jargon about “unlawful processions.”
Power-hungry Museveni now rules on fumes—physically frail, politically and morally bankrupt, yet still forcing himself on a nation that has clearly moved on. Instead of preparing our country, Uganda 🇺🇬 for a peaceful transition, he is determined to die in office, dragging the country down with him if necessary.
This is not leadership; it is hostage-taking.
Coming on the heels of Tanzania’s farcical election, where real opponents were barred and protests were met with bullets, Uganda’s sham vote fits a disturbing regional pattern—from Guinea to Cameroon—where elections are emptied of meaning and turned into spectacles of state power. These are not democratic exercises; they are warnings. They are meant to tell citizens: know your place.
But contempt for the people is not stability. It is a slow-burning fuse. By silencing voices and crushing dissent, this regime is manufacturing the very anger and resentment it fears. You cannot brutalize a population forever and call it peace. You cannot steal choice indefinitely and expect obedience.
This election will not deliver legitimacy. It will only deepen the crisis. And when the frustration finally boils over, history will remember who chose repression over reform—and who stood on the side of the Ugandan people.
