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Uganda‘s Museveni bucks trend of "Big Man" departuresDate : 20/02/2011 Publication
: German Press Agency dpa Category
: Feature
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Nairobi - While the threadbare ranks of Africa's old-school "Big Man" leaders dwindled further this year with the departure of the presidents of Egypt and Tunisia, Uganda's Yoweri Museveni is still going strong.
His predictable victory in Friday's elections gave him his fourth elected term in office - his first came in 1996, ten years after he seized power - and barring any unforeseen mishaps will see him reach 30 years as the leader of the once coup-prone East African nation.
The man with a fondness for wide-brimmed Stetson hats, born at some point in 1944, took power at the point of a gun - although given Uganda's volatile history since independence from Britain in 1962, few could have foreseen the period of relative stability that would follow.
Museveni, born into a humble family of cattle herders from the Banyankole ethnic group, helped Tanzania and other rebels oust the notorious dictator Idi Amin in 1979.
In 1981, Museveni then started his own rebellion against Milton Obote - the man deposed by Amin in 1971 before returning to power in 1980 elections.
The president's National Resistance Army fought a bush war against Obote and his successor Tito Okello - who grabbed power in 1985 - until they took Kampala and installed Museveni on January 26, 1986.
Museveni quickly became the blue-eyed boy of the Western donor community as Uganda was transformed under his rule.
Aside from a brutal localized rebellion by the Lord‘s Resistance Army, which began shortly after Museveni took control, and a deadly Kamapala suicide bombing last year in revenge for the presence of Ugandan peacekeepers in Somalia, the peace and stability once so elusive in Uganda has been maintained.
School enrollment has shot up, Museveni‘s crusade to tackle the HIV/AIDS epidemic has brought results and praise, and steady economic growth has been achieved - averaging at 5 per cent over the last five years.
Yet this rosy picture is counterbalanced by growing opposition to a man who seems to consider the presidency a job for life - a point illustrated when he had the constitution changed prior to the 2006 elections to abolish term limits and allow him to run for office indefinitely.
His opponents accuse him of favouring his Banyankole tribesmen and family members for key positions and say corruption is widespread, while frictions with the traditional Buganda Kingdom exploded into violence last year.
The political opposition, however, is weak and divided and Museveni has shown he is not afraid to clamp down to keep it that way. Prior to the 2006 election, his main challenger - former bush war ally Kizza Besigye - was arrested and charged with treason and rape.
Besigye was acquitted and polled a respectable 37 per cent in the election, but he and his supporters said he had been unable to campaign properly due to time spent fighting the charges.
Museveni's former ally was second-best in 2011 with even less of the vote, and has said he expects his supporters to emulate the Arab world and protest what he said was a vote rigged in the president's favour. However, Museveni has promised to crush any dissent, and is unlikely to be toppled by demonstrations.
International support for Museveni has also declined, and he is no longer the darling of the donor community - a process that began with Uganda‘s involvement in the 1998-2003 war in Democratic Republic of Congo.
Ugandan forces were accused of looting mineral resources from its neighbour, and a 2010 United Nations report also alleged that Museveni‘s troops carried out atrocities against civilians during the conflict.
In recent years, donors have also cut funding amid concerns over a virulent atmosphere of homophobia in Uganda that saw one lawmaker try to introduce the death penalty for certain homosexual acts.
Yet the discovery of oil means Museveni will care far less what international donors think of him. London-based Tullow Oil Plc, which is expected to start pumping oil and gas next year, estimates Uganda is sitting on reserves of around 2.5 billion barrels of oil.
With oil money allowing him to shrug off international pressure and nobody seeming capable of mounting a domestic challenge, Museveni, still hale and hearty in his mid-sixties, looks set to remain at the top of the pile for the foreseeable future.