SIMON DENYER, Kampala | Monday
UGANDANS have begun voting in presidential elections, with incumbent Yoweri Museveni the strong favourite to win a final five-year term after a keenly contested and sometimes violent race.
The start of voting was delayed by more than half an hour as some polling stations waited for deliveries of ballot boxes and voting papers.
Overall the capital appeared calm, with armed military police patrolling the almost deserted streets.
The 56-year-old Museveni took power at the head of a guerrilla army in 1986, and won by a landslide 74 percent when he first went to the polls in 1996. But this time he is facing a much tougher challenge from a former comrade in the bush war, Kizza Besigye.
The bitter campaign has seen each side accusing the other of violence and intimidation, and of trying to rig the vote.
When Museveni came to power 15 years ago, he ended a nightmare period in Uganda’s history, during which hundreds of thousands of people had been tortured and killed under the brutal dictatorships of Idi Amin and Milton Obote.
Museveni rebuilt a tattered economy, introduced free primary education, championed women’s rights, and even brought HIV/AIDS under control, in the process becoming a darling of the West.
But he also banned political parties, which he blamed for fomenting ethnic and sectarian hatred, governing instead as head of a ”no party” Movement.
For all Museveni’s achievements, Besigye’s challenge has been a surprisingly strong one, tapping disillusionment among Movement insiders as well as those left behind by the system.
Besigye fought with Museveni in the bush war which brought him to power, working as his doctor in the guerrilla army and then becoming a senior figure in his government.
But increasingly he found himself unhappy with the president’s autocratic style of leadership and unwillingness to take advice or tackle high-level corruption.
There is also a hint of personal animosity between them. Besigye is married to a former girlfriend of Museveni’s, a member of parliament seen by many Ugandans as even more ambitious than her husband.
Besigye has accused Museveni of unleashing a campaign of intimidation and violence against his supporters, and says he fears the vote will be neither free nor fair.
The Movement system hugely favours the incumbent – critics say Uganda is virtually a one-party state – and Museveni has not been hesitant about harnessing the power, organisation and resources of the state to ensure his likely victory. – Reuters