Grandfather Returns to Power as Museveni Extends Four-Decade Rule in Uganda

 

Uganda’s long-serving president, Yoweri Museveni, has once again been declared winner of the country’s presidential election, extending a rule that now spans nearly four decades. What was presented as a democratic exercise has, for many observers, reinforced an old African paradox: elections that change nothing.

Museveni, who first came to power in 1986, has governed Uganda longer than many of his citizens have been alive. Over the years, constitutional amendments have removed age limits and term limits, gradually transforming what was once a revolutionary leadership into a presidency without an obvious exit plan. Each election cycle arrives with familiar rituals, campaigns, ballots, declarations, yet the outcome remains predictably unchanged.

Across Africa, coups are swiftly condemned by regional and continental bodies, often described as setbacks to democratic progress. Yet the slow erosion of democracy through constitutional manipulation, political repression, and electoral engineering attracts far less urgency. Power seized by the gun is denounced; power retained by legal gymnastics is tolerated.

Uganda’s elections have repeatedly been marred by allegations of voter intimidation, restricted civic space, media clampdowns, and the arrest or harassment of opposition figures. Still, international responses tend to oscillate between muted concern and diplomatic acceptance. Stability, it appears, is preferred to accountability.

Museveni’s latest victory raises questions that go beyond Uganda. It speaks to a wider African challenge: how long can democracy survive when leadership becomes permanent? At what point does continuity become stagnation? And when elections cease to offer the possibility of change, what meaning do they retain?

For Uganda’s youthful population, one of the youngest in the world, the future remains uncertain. The country votes, but history stands still. And Africa, once again, is left debating not whether democracy exists, but whether it is allowed to breathe.