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Uganda: How Bobi Wine becomes the hope of the democracy movement

2021-01-22T09:41:09.033Z


Despite arrests and torture, Bobi Wine is fighting for a change of power in Uganda. After an unfair election, the regime tries to silence him with house arrest - and could do the opposite.


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Campaigner Bobi Wine in the capital Kampala

Photo: Luke Dray / Getty Images

It was an unfair fight that came to a temporary end at the ballot boxes in Uganda last week.

On the one hand, President Yoweri Museveni.

A 76-year-old grandfather who has been in power longer than most Ugandans are alive.

He has ruled the country for 35 years, giving gifts to his political supporters and using the security forces to silence critics.

On the other hand, Bobi Wine, the most promising opposition candidate, was a charismatic ex-rapper whose real name is Robert Kyagulanyi.

A man who grew up with 33 siblings in a slum in the capital Kampala.

And who still made it to Makerere University in Kampala, one of the most famous in Africa and was first elected to parliament in 2017.

Whose songs about corruption and lack of perspective had become the soundtrack of a frustrated youth.

A man praised by international observers for his modesty, who, despite arrests and torture, fought relentlessly for his generation.

A man who is revered like a pop star among the youth of the continent.

And who had to lose. 

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Arrest of a Bobi Wine supporter

Photo: ABUBAKER LUBOWA / REUTERS

"We're the leaders of the future, and the future is today" is the refrain of one of his most famous songs.

It is lines like this that scared the regime.

In the eyes of those in power, every change in the power structure means a step towards chaos.

There are lines like this, which is why Bobi Wine, whom they also call their "ghetto president" in Uganda, was not allowed to win.

Evidence of election fraud

And so the result of the election and Wine's defeat came as no surprise: On Saturday, the election commission declared President Yoweri Museveni the winner of the election with 59 percent of the vote.

According to official counts, Wine received 35 percent.

Unfortunately, this defeat was not surprising.

The elections were neither free nor fair.

On the same day, the USA and Great Britain demanded a review of the final result for indications of possible fraud.

An African election observation group, the Africa Elections Watch coalition, had sent 2,000 observers and also reported irregularities.

The internet was turned off during the election.

In the months before, opposition politicians and their supporters had been attacked, arrested and even killed.

Also on Saturday, Wine turned to Western governments supporting Uganda.

Uganda receives almost two billion dollars in humanitarian and military aid every year from the west.

The regime, he demanded, must be held accountable for this "mockery of democracy".

Challenger Wine under house arrest, opposition criminalized

At this point, Bobi Wine had been under house arrest for a day.

Soldiers surrounded his villa on January 15, and his phones are now off.

Messages only appear sporadically on his Twitter account.

"We are under siege," he wrote about himself and his wife on January 15th.

They were now running out of food and milk for his wife's 18-month-old niece.

"We are under siege"

Bobi Wine from house arrest

On Monday, the US ambassador was prevented by the Ugandan military from bringing food to the compound.

It had been quiet in Uganda for a long time.

The economy grew steadily, there were hardly any ethnic conflicts.

And in the west, President Yoweri Museveni was a welcome guest.

An ally in the fight against Islamist terror.

Even when he had long since mutated into an autocrat and election fraud and constitutional changes to maintain power had become his modus operandi.

For the young generation in Uganda, but also in the whole of Africa, this choice is now a confirmation of how tough these old systems of rule are.

It demonstrates to the outside world a development that can be observed in more and more African countries: the rigorous criminalization of the opposition.

For opposition leaders in authoritarian states such as Tanzania, Uganda, Guinea, Cameroon, Zambia, Burundi, Rwanda, Togo and Zimbabwe, the primary challenge is not to defeat the ruling government parties at the ballot box.

Rather, they must spend a good deal of their scarce resources avoiding attacks and arbitrary arrests.

Tanzanian opposition candidate Tundu Lissu survived an assassination attempt in 2017.

After the elections in Tanzania in October last year, I had to flee first to the residence of the German ambassador and then to Belgium.

Bobi Wine now faces the same fate in Uganda.

He too said at the weekend that he was afraid for his life and that of his wife.

Not for the first time.

As early as 2018, the regime's henchmen held him for four days and tortured him.

The West is an accomplice

It was this torment that made him known in the West too.

International politicians then demanded his release.

He was flown to the USA, where his injuries were treated and where civil rights activist Jesse Jackson awarded him an award for his political work.

But Wine knew that this would not help the people in Uganda.

»We Ugandans have waited a long time for help from abroad.

We now know: Without the help of the West, this dictator would not have existed for a long time.

These countries are accomplices, they are not interested in values ​​or people, but only in business, ”he said at the time.

The problem is, however, that President Yoweri Museveni, like more and more dictators in Africa, feels that his actions will not have any serious international consequences.

Threats from the West that human rights violations would lead to serious consequences sound increasingly hollow to the ears of the autocrats.

And yet the Bobi Wine case gives hope.

Since his de facto arrest, statements of support by democratic opposition members from all over Africa have increased in rare solidarity.

And so the defeat of the man, whose spirit of resistance is admired by many, could become a unifying moment for democracy movements across Africa.

A sign that pro democratic opposition leaders in Africa are learning that they must speak and work together with one voice.

And Bobi Wine would become a character that had not existed for a long time: a Pan-African hero.

Icon: The mirror

Source: spiegel

All news articles on 2021-01-22

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