Domestic affairs

Faced with the same problems that had confronted the UNLF in 1979 and Obote in 1980, Museveni announced a policy of moral as well as economic reconstruction, although it was not easy to enforce. Sporadic military resistance to the new government continued, particularly in the north and east. Arms were plentiful, and dissatisfied persons were willing to use them to promote their ends. The NRA, despite the president’s injunctions, sometimes proved as heavy-handed in dealing with opponents as Obote’s forces had been.

Security did improve, however, at least in most of central, southern, and western Uganda, and observers claimed that human rights were more widely protected. A constitutional amendment in 1993 led to the restoration of the monarchies, and the Ganda, Toro, Bunyoro, and Soga crowned their traditional rulers. The new constitution was promulgated in 1995, and presidential elections were held in May 1996; Museveni easily won the majority of votes. He was reelected in 2001.

During the 1990s and continuing into the 2000s, Uganda was faced with an increase in rebel activity, particularly from the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), led by Joseph Kony. Established in the late 1980s, the LRA abducted tens of thousands of children to serve as slaves or soldiers in its fight against Museveni’s government. Its vicious attacks on civilians in the northern part of the country—including rape, murder, and acts of mutilation, such as cutting off the ears, noses, lips, and limbs of their victims—terrorized and displaced more than one million Ugandans, creating a humanitarian crisis in the early 2000s. After years of refusal, the LRA agreed to meet with government officials for peace talks in late December 2004. However, the talks broke down in early 2005, and the LRA resumed their brutal attacks on civilians. Peace talks resumed in July 2006, and although a cease-fire agreement was reached in late August, talks again broke down, and negotiations to end the decades-old conflict continued intermittently. In late 2008 Uganda began a joint military operation with armed forces from the DRC and southern Sudan (now South Sudan) to target LRA bases in the DRC. The campaign’s goals were to capture or kill Kony and to destroy the organization’s command structure. The operation was poorly executed, however, and ultimately failed. Kony escaped, and the LRA, which dispersed throughout the northeastern DRC and into Sudan and the Central African Republic, continued its acts of terror in those countries.

Although the country’s continued economic growth was praised by the West, inflation and unemployment continued to be problems in the early 2000s, especially given Uganda’s dependence on fluctuating markets for its agricultural produce. In an effort to enhance economic activity in the region, Uganda, Tanzania, and Kenya launched the East African Community Customs Union on January 1, 2005; they were joined by Burundi and Rwanda in 2009. Oil discoveries beginning in the first decade of the 2000s also bolstered economic prognostications for Uganda.

Meanwhile, in a referendum in 2005, Ugandan voters overwhelmingly endorsed a return to multiparty politics. Museveni, who had long argued against a multiparty democracy on the premise that it would divide the country along ethnic lines, embraced the referendum and accepted the results in the face of pressure from international donors. The next year the country held its first multiparty elections since 1980. A constitutional amendment that eliminated existing presidential term limits, also passed in 2005, allowed Museveni to stand in the 2006 presidential election. Representing the NRM, he was reelected, although the contest was clouded by allegations that Kizza Besigye, the leader of the opposition group Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), was imprisoned in the months leading up to the presidential election to stop him from participating. Besigye was ultimately released in January 2006 and able to stand for election in February, and, although he lost, he managed to garner almost two-fifths of the vote.

Museveni and Besigye were the two front-runners in the 2011 presidential election as well, in which Museveni was reelected with 68 percent of the vote. Besigye, who took 26 percent of the vote, rejected the results. The basis of his rejection was supported by observations of international monitors, who cited an increased military presence on voting day as being intimidating and noted that too many voters were disenfranchised. They also noted instances of ruling party members giving money and gifts to election officials and others, actions construed as bribery.

Corruption, long a problem in the country, continued to be an issue. Although much appeared to be done to combat it, in reality very little was accomplished in the fight against graft. A former head of the country’s Anti-Corruption Court complained that only low-level cases were being tried and that high-ranking perpetrators of corrupt practices went unpunished.

In the years before the 2016 elections, there was speculation as to whether Museveni would once again be the NRM’s presidential candidate; there was also speculation that he was grooming his son, Brigadier Muhoozi Kainerugaba, to succeed him. His desire to run again appeared to be confirmed in part in 2014, when he sacked Amama Mbabazi, the prime minister. Mbabazi had been a longtime ally of Museveni but was also seen as the second most-powerful political figure in the NRM and a strong contender for the presidential nomination. In early 2015 Mbabazi announced his intent to challenge Museveni for the NRM presidential nomination but later said that he would instead run as an independent candidate, citing what he claimed were attempts by the NRM to block his efforts.

Museveni faced seven challengers for the presidency in the February 18, 2016, elections, the foremost being Besigye and Mbabazi. Museveni was declared the winner, with about 60 percent of the vote. Besigye, his nearest challenger, received about 35 percent, and Mbabazi took less than 1.5 percent of the vote. Museveni’s victory was announced amid complaints of missing materials that delayed voting in opposition strongholds and allegations of voting irregularities. Some international observers criticized the atmosphere surrounding the vote, citing a climate of fear and intimidation; they also condemned the repeated detainment of Besigye by the police and noted problems with the transparency of the vote. Besigye, the FDC, and others declared the results to be fraudulent. In March Mbabazi filed a petition with the Supreme Court, seeking to have the presidential election result declared null because of the alleged widespread irregularities. Later that month the Supreme Court dismissed his petition. The court acknowledged that there was evidence that some irregularities had occurred but stated that it did not believe the issues cited by Mbabazi had substantially affected the result of the election. Meanwhile, in parliamentary elections, also held in February, the NRM retained more than a two-thirds majority of the body’s seats.

In late 2017, after contentious debate, Parliament voted to amend the constitution in order to remove the presidential age limit of 75 years as well as to reinstate the limit of two terms; this would allow Museveni, then 73, to stand in the next two presidential elections. Although the amendment was challenged in the courts, it was ultimately upheld by the Supreme Court in 2019.

As expected, Museveni was the NRM candidate in the 2021 presidential election. There were 10 other candidates, though perennial opposition leader Besigye was not among them; he opted not to run this time. Museveni’s most formidable challenger was the leader of the National Unity Platform (NUP), 38-year-old lawmaker and entertainer Robert Kyagulanyi, who was popularly referred to as Bobi Wine. The campaign period prior to the election took place when COVID-19 pandemic restrictive measures were in force. It was also clouded by the repressive actions by government security forces, which frequently dispersed opposition rallies or protests—ostensibly to enforce COVID rules on gatherings, though critics noted that NRM rallies were not targeted in a similar manner. Notably, Wine was arrested or detained multiple times for allegedly having violated COVID lockdown measures while campaigning. One such arrest, in November 2020, led to protests by his supporters; security forces killed more than 50 people and injured many others as they broke up the crowds. In addition, government forces restricted media coverage of opposition leaders and their campaigns. There were also reports of opposition supporters being abducted.

The election was held on January 14, 2021. In contrast to previous elections, there were very few international monitors approved to observe proceedings. The Electoral Commission announced that Museveni had won the election, receiving more than 58 percent of the vote; Wine was said to have received about 35 percent. Soon after Wine had voted, he was kept under house arrest, which impacted his ability to meet with other party leaders to appeal the results—especially crucial given the narrow window of time after an election in which an appeal to the results was allowed to be filed. The High Court ordered his release on January 25. A week later Wine filed a petition with the Supreme Court to have the election results overturned; he cited the harassment of his supporters and alleged that there was overwhelming evidence of fraud. Weeks later though, he withdrew his challenge, claiming the court was biased; he noted that the court rejected his attempts to provide additional evidence to support his claims of fraudulent activity. Meanwhile, parliamentary elections, also held in January, saw the NRM once again winning by far the most seats, about two-thirds. Wine’s NUP won about one-tenth of the parliamentary seats, making it the next largest party in Parliament after the NRM.

The campaign and election period of 2020–21, as well as two years prior to that, was in the spotlight in March 2022. That month Human Rights Watch released a report about government forces unlawfully detaining and torturing opposition-party supporters and critics of the government.

Foreign affairs

In the late 1990s Uganda faced international criticism over its involvement in the civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). After many attempts at resolution, the last of the Ugandan troops withdrew from the DRC in 2003. In December 2005 the International Court of Justice determined that Uganda was guilty of unlawful military intervention in the DRC and that Uganda’s military had violated international human rights law and international humanitarian law and exploited the DRC’s natural resources; the court ruled that Uganda owed reparations to the country.

Uganda has since had a military presence in other countries. In Somalia, Ugandan troops served in an African Union force beginning in 2007; this was generally lauded by the international community. Less popular was Uganda’s intervention in South Sudan on behalf of that country’s government in the civil war that began in December 2013.