Five years ago Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni was being compared to Nelson Mandela.
He had transformed a country on the brink of civil war, sickened by eight years of Idi Amin, who had killed 500 000, and horrified by the corruption and excess of Milton Obote.
Western-backed reforms brought growth and comparative prosperity.
Museveni’s openness towards addressing HIV/Aids became a continental model of fighting the pandemic.
He was not running a democratic country, but even that looked like turning.
Museveni loomed large regionally. He backed Laurent Kabila’s ousting of Mobutu Sese Seko in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1997, and a year later sent in troops to get rid of Kabila.
He is credited most recently with saving the Somali peace talks in his capacity as chairperson of the Inter-Government Authority on Development. But this was a success against a rather disappointing run of play.
As Ugandans prepare for democratic elections in 2006, Museveni is bracing to commit the cardinal sin of tampering with the Constitution to give himself an extra term in office.
Having arrived in office extra-constitutionally in 1986, Museveni ran out of presidential terms after succeeding in elections — such as they were — in 1996 and 2001.
The bid for an extra term is being handled by young MPs from within his governing Movement party. They say this bid to change the Constitution has surprised Museveni.
The anti-third termers, some from within the Movement, say this is laughable.
Museveni himself has only said he will sack anyone within his party opposing him. The Ugandan leader’s reformist zeal has all but evaporated and he has adopted a haughty tone.
Recently he told a crowd he hates poor people and would like all people to be like him and his family.
”[First Lady] Janet has never strapped a baby on her back or drawn water from a well on her head and I want all to be like her,” Museveni told the peasants.
He added that it is not good to stay among poor people because it is like a contagious disease. Museveni said he has transformed Nyabushozi, his home county, into a ”modern area” compared to other places in the country.
”If you go to Nyabushozi, there is a lot of development: permanent houses, good farms and people sending their children to university,” he said.
Museveni told the gathering that he invites delegations to his home in Rwakitura so that they can pass through Nyabushozi and draw lessons about how they can develop their own homes.
”People of Nyabushozi are developed now; they are no longer the same, but I am still above all of them,” he said.
Top of the news remains his decision to quit as commander of the army to give himself more time to deal with party matters. Observers say he has been planning this for years — even mentioning it during the 1996 presidential elections.
”The president has worked a lot for this army and this country. He is sure that even if he goes now, things are okay,” says Colonel Kasirye Gwanga, one of the Movement mobilisers.
Museveni is demonstrating his confidence in the military leadership and showing that he has delivered on the 2001 election manifesto to creating a professional army.
He will nevertheless retain his rank of lieutenant general but with an addition of retired and his constitutional title of commander in chief of the Uganda People’s Defence Forces.
By quitting the army Museveni has cleared the decks to fight the political battle ahead. The president earlier this month said now that he has left the army, he is going to deal with the bad behaviour ”eating up the Movement”.
In recent months movement leaders such as Eriya Kategaya and Miria Matembe have openly criticised a third term, with Kategaya saying he would oppose Museveni if he dares stand again.
According to Betty Kamya of the opposition Reform Agenda, Museveni’s retirement is an indicator of his intentions. ”Why should he retire from ‘his army’, and take up a political position if he is not prepared to stay around for much longer? If he is going to run for the third term we are ready for him.”
Uganda’s human rights record has been dented with its failure since 1988 to submit a report to the United Nations Committee against Torture. The country is on notice that it faces suspension from the committee if it does not comply soon.
Rebel activities in the north and west continue to dog Museveni.
However, the real possibility of a peace deal in northern neighbour Sudan should deny refuge there to the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) opposing Museveni — provided the Ugandans can get the Sudanese army to keep its promise to occupy bases vacated by the LRA in southern Sudan.