Is it possible for one to win a poll but lose the population? Time will tell!

At some point in the next 48-72 hours, the chairperson of the Electoral Commission, Justice Simon Byabakama, will declare Yoweri Tibuhaburwa Kaguta Museveni re-elected as President of Uganda. Don’t ask me how I know.

There is plenty for the incumbent to claim credit for. Compared to Burundi, South Sudan or DR Congo – which are all in the neighbourhood – Uganda is relatively peaceful.

Although its rewards are distributed very unequally, the economy continues to grow albeit at an underwhelming rate. There are visible investments in energy and transport infrastructure. Life ain’t great now, but it’s much improved.

Now into its fourth decade of incumbency, the ruling NRM party starts every election with more than a million votes in the box by dint of its national network of political appointees and beneficiaries of patronage. The president alone, directly or indirectly, appoints thousands of officials.

Throw in relatives, friends and in-laws and we are probably talking a million and a half at the starting block.

But to call what we have just witnessed an “election” – even by the low bar of African standards – is to use the word loosely. 

To begin with, the incumbent was only on the ballot because brute force was used to bully Members of Parliament to remove the age limit from the Constitution. The pool of blood in the parliamentary chamber seeped into the political process, starting with the by-election in Arua Municipality.

Although the law allows intending candidates as much as a year to go around collecting signatures and testing the popularity of their ideas, the police ensured most of this process was effectively snuffed out under the guise of the Public Order Management Act.

The incumbent, meanwhile, continued to traverse the country and highlight the achievements of his government.

Then came the Covid-pandemic. Mr Museveni was initially a steadying hand and a reassuring voice in national television, showing leadership and calming nerves, but it wasn’t long before the opportunism kicked in.

In a television interview in May, the incumbent said it would be “madness” to carry on with the election if no vaccine had not been found by July. July came and went, as did August and September and into October with no vaccine, but with a skewed political process continuing. 

But there was method in this “madness.” Postponing the election would have required declaring a state of emergency and temporarily handing power over to the Speaker of Parliament.

The loss of power, even temporarily, was apparently too troubling to even consider, so we jumped head-long into a campaign process dubiously described as “scientific,” but which is closer to witchcraft in its realm of impossibility and impracticability.

While NRM parliamentary primaries carried on in complete disregard of the pandemic social-distancing rules, Opposition politicians were stopped or arrested at every turn. And when protests broke out after the arrest of a presidential candidate, they were met with disproportionate force, leading to the death of at least 54 people.

How can an election in which 54 ordinary citizens are shot dead be considered free or fair?

Or one in which many more people have been shot dead by as-yet-to-be-named security agents knocking on their doors in the dead of the night?

Or one in which hundreds of young men and women thought to support the Opposition have been disappeared? And lawyers, journalists and other civil society actors arrested or harassed and social media – the very tool meant to be relied upon in this so-called ‘scientific’ campaign – switched off?

Your columnist is among those who believe that in a majority-rural country, with the benefits of incumbency, and facing a field of mostly first-time presidential candidates, Mr Museveni would still have scrapped past the finish line by running a campaign of politics and persuasion.

Instead, he has run a violent and militant one in which his messages and those of his rivals, have been drowned out by the crackle of gunfire, the cries of the injured and the sobbing of widows. 

In the short-term this violence will suppress the Opposition vote and deliver another electoral declaration, but it will also radicalise many young people.

Providing military answers to political questions doesn’t just make peaceful change harder to come by; it often makes violence inevitable. So buckle up, cause it’s gon’ get bumpy. 

One day we will look back and see that it is possible for one to win a poll but lose a large chunk of the population.