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Why elections in Uganda are ritualistic coronations

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President Museveni inspects a guard of honour during the pass out of soldiers in 2023. Museveni’s philosophy and political-military paths have fundamentally been his concern to cause the social metamorphosis of society. Inset is the cover of the book "Autocratization in Contemporary Uganda: Clientelism, Coercion and Social Control." PHOTO/FILE

The swearing-in of Yoweri Museveni as President of Uganda on May 12, 2021 constituted the beginning of his sixth elected term in office. It also put an end to yet another general election characterised by a tumultuous process followed by a predictable outcome.

Just like elections before it, the campaigns before the poll were marked by partisan administration, violence against the Opposition, and heated contestation. And once again, official but disputed results secured Museveni another five years in power and his NRM party an overwhelming majority in parliament.

Despite defiant challenges to Museveni posed by Kizza Besigye, and most recently Bobi Wine, over the course of two decades, Uganda had by the early 2020s settled into a stable hegemonic electoral autocracy where elections by and large are an instrumental and reliable mechanism for reproducing power for Museveni and the National Resistance Movement (NRM).

Such hegemonic domination is not given; it is created. Nor is its evolution linear: it is dynamically linked to resistance against it. The interplay between power and resistance is both expressed and intensified by electoral dynamics.

Multi-party elections in authoritarian settings always contain a degree of uncertainty by aggregating mobilisation. For instance, even though Uganda’s return to multi-party politics in 2005 was preceded by two decades of an effective ban on Opposition parties and accompanied by the removal of presidential term limits, the 2006 presidential elections turned out to be surprisingly challenging to Museveni because of Besigye’s sudden return from exile and his capacity to reignite grievances.

However, just as Opposition actors mobilise to increase the uncertainty of electoral outcomes, autocrats seek to minimise it by shaping playing fields to their advantage. Such struggles over electoral regulation and outcome extend over time; autocrats learn from experience and adapt in order to strengthen domination and have extensive and powerful resources and networks at their disposal.

Outline
Drawing on existing scholarship on multi-party elections in authoritarian systems, this chapter analyses how elections have contributed to the consolidation and deepening of authoritarian rule in Uganda under Museveni. For that purpose, the chapter assesses the argument that a key source of autocratic longevity is government's capacity to adapt different aspects of formal and informal electoral management to stabilise the uncertainty of competitive politics at low levels.

President Museveni has made use of elections to entrench his rule under two political regimes, characterised by very different conditions in terms of managing uncertainty. The chapter examines the trajectory of general elections with an emphasis on presidential ones since the reintroduction of political pluralism but stretching back to the no-party era by covering the 1996 and 2001 elections which in different ways shaped multi-party politics.

The former of those elections constituted the high-water mark of legitimation and consolidated control during the no-party period, assets that were carried over into multi-party competition, while the latter election posed challenges to Museveni and NRM hegemony that contributed significantly both to the shift to multi-party politics and to shaping electoral regulation in that era.

In relation to the overall theme and argument of this book, the chapter addresses the evolution of electoral regulation as a crucial instance of autocratic adaptability and resilience through institutional manipulation. Apart from the transition to multi-party elections, a particularly important aspect of institutional manipulation is of course the twin tampering with restrictions on executive power through the removal of the term and age limits in 2005 and 2017, respectively.

More specifically the chapter investigates how the institutional management and manoeuvring of electoral regulation induced by the President and the ruling party has evolved in relation to opposition resistance and repeated calls for electoral reform.

The chapter proceeds with a review of the literature on multi-party elections in authoritarian contexts, focusing on the factors that shape how and when elections stabilise autocratic rule. Based on existing research, it deploys an argument about evolving government capacity to manage regime-challenging activity and institutionalise predictability.

The chapter then assesses the period covering the six general elections held under Museveni’s rule with special attention to key features of and important turning points in the arrangement of electoral rules and practices.

Under the no-party system with its ban on political party activity, the reduction of uncertainty was part and parcel of the political regime.

The empirical part of the chapter begins by briefly revisiting this period, as it produced the conditions and foundation for incumbent domination during subsequent multi-party politics. The no-party elections to Resistance Councils in 1989 and to the Constituent Assembly in 1994 offered Museveni good opportunities to build and broaden a governing coalition and create internal and external legitimacy.

This trajectory of carefully guided and guarded elections producing low uncertainty and extensive rewards culminated with the 1995 Constitution and the 1996 general elections. Subsequent elections, with the 2001 election as a turning point, were all marked by deeper divisions and more intense challenges to Museveni, creating greater uncertainty and, beyond securing extended control of state power, less added benefits as a result of negative reactions to extensive and visible manipulation and coercion.

This section concludes with an important caveat. All general election processes and results under the NRM, and especially since 2001, have been disputed. In 2001, 2006 and 2016 losing candidates in presidential elections went to court to challenge the results, and in 2001 and 2006, the Supreme Court in its rulings was divided down the middle.

This chapter recognises the questionable quality of Ugandan election results, and throughout the results referred to are the officially declared ones, which are not necessarily assumed to be reliable and valid but are the only ones available.

Elections in autocracies
Electoral autocracies—authoritarian political systems with democratic trappings such as elections—have since the end of the Cold War become increasingly common, and the dynamics of multi-party elections under authoritarianism is correspondingly subject to extensive and growing scholarly examination. 

Existing research shows that while autocratic elections are always manipulated by incumbents, the extent to which such manipulation is efficient differs widely. In some contexts, elections are tightly fought and genuinely uncertain and are potential mechanisms for regime change. In others, however, the outcome is predictable, and elections mainly serve as tools for reinforcing domination.

How and why do elections contribute to the consolidation and deepening of authoritarian rule? Research emphasising the regime-entrenching effects of autocratic elections has theorised and documented the many mechanisms through which this occurs. The menu of manipulation with items that can be deployed during an electoral cycle is a long one. A main factor highlighted by the literature is stabilisation through co-optation.

Elections provide opportunities for incumbents to make use of their privileged access to state resources. They can distribute spoils among elites to signal and effectuate the stability of ruling coalitions by ensuring collaboration and counteracting defections; evidently, ruling parties also frequently use public funds to create measures designed to reward loyal sections of the electorate and to divide, co-opt and punish opposition politicians, activists and supporters. 

Elections further function as information systems. Rulers can use electoral campaigns and results to send and receive communication about government and opposition strength and weakness at elite and popular levels. Such mapping of capacity and vulnerability underpins learning and facilitates adaptation and may serve to reduce the risks of non-institutionalised change such as coups or rebellions.

Finally, elections can offer opportunities to create and sustain legitimacy for rulers in relation to domestic and international constituencies. To summarise, from this perspective autocratic elections constrain political contestation through the ways rulers shape and control an unlevelled playing field populated by loyal insiders and disempowered outsiders. In Sub-Saharan Africa a mechanism frequently utilised by incumbents to this end is to adapt legislation on executive term limits and other restrictions on presidential power; this has happened twice in Uganda.

Hegemonic electoral authoritarianism
However, while incumbent advantage is a given, the balance of power in the electoral arena is not uniform among electoral autocracies. Nor is it constant within cases over time. A rich literature has documented how autocratic elections are focal points of contestation.

Even though incumbents have sufficient means and opportunities to influence the structural and institutional parameters of contestation and subvert genuine competition in a great number of ways, Opposition parties and civil society groups can raise challenges that to a varying extent deepen the uncertainty built into every electoral contest.

When can Opposition groups turn autocratic elections into opportunities for change? The political Opposition in electoral autocracies face incumbents that are willing and able to demobilise dissent and thus need to overcome major coordination and collective action challenges. 

Research points to the importance of financial resources and organisational capacity which may underpin and reproduce much-needed sustained opposition unity. Such assets may help to transform sporadic expressions of grievances into systematic government – challenging mobilisation and politicisation. A strong opposition can more forcefully contest elections and dispute electoral frameworks.

However, the presence of political opposition parties or coalitions with convincing competitive capacity raises the electoral stakes and prompts governments to intensify their demobilisation efforts using legislation, administration, money, technology and violence. Observations of differences among electoral autocracies in terms of the extent of ruling-party political dominance and electoral competitiveness has led to the analytical distinction between competitive and hegemonic variants. 

Uganda is arguably a case of hegemonic electoral authoritarianism. What explains stable hegemonic electoral domination? Recent scholarly contributions point to its development over time, and more precisely to increasing government capacity to institutionalise low and easily manageable levels of electoral uncertainty. The uncertainty always brought about by elections tends to be more threatening during the early stages of electoral competition, as witnessed in the case of Uganda’s 2006 elections. 

The main challenge for autocrats in relation to multi-party elections is thus to master their regulation in order to promote stabilisation, using combinations of coercion, co-optation and legitimation. Existing research thus tells us that the ability of autocrats to use elections in order to consolidate power is, as can be expected, conditioned by the level of sustained resistance that opposition forces in political parties and social movements can raise. 

Where incumbents face weak opposition contenders, elections offer rulers rich opportunities and resources for not only retaining but also expanding and consolidating power through co-optation, information and legitimation.

Where Opposition forces are better organised and less vulnerable to manipulation, elections are more challenging and complicated for officeholders. They are a necessary mechanism for holding on to power but bring greater uncertainty and require more efforts and resources, including monetary and coercive ones, to win.

Under more competitive circumstances, therefore, autocratic rulers will need to intensify their efforts to minimise electoral uncertainty and maintain an unlevelled playing field through the interconnected processes of calibrating the manipulation of electoral regulation and demobilising Opposition groups.