Opposition leaders in Uganda denounce a “military state” as President Museveni seeks to extend his 40-year rule amid arrests and campaign violence.
KAMPALA: Uganda’s opposition has denounced the country as a “military state” ahead of a presidential election widely expected to extend President Yoweri Museveni’s 40-year rule.
At a prayer meeting on Sunday, Kampala Mayor Erias Lukwago told supporters they were either “political prisoners or potential political prisoners”.
He described the upcoming vote as a “face off” between ordinary citizens and Museveni’s regime.
The 81-year-old president maintains near-total control over the state and security apparatus, having come to power as a bush fighter in the 1980s.
His latest re-election campaign has seen hundreds of opposition supporters arrested and at least one killed.
Main opposition candidate Bobi Wine, whose real name is Robert Kyagulanyi, now rarely appears in public without a flak jacket and has described the campaign as a “war”.
Wine has been arrested multiple times and tortured in military custody.
The only other significant opposition leader, Kizza Besigye, was kidnapped in Kenya in 2024 and secretly taken to a Ugandan military prison.
He faces ongoing treason charges in a case that has dragged on for months.
His wife, UNAIDS director Winnie Byanyima, hosted Sunday’s prayer meeting at their Kampala home.
“We are really a military state,” she told AFP.
“There’s total capture of state institutions by the individual who holds military power, President Museveni.”
Byanyima said Uganda possesses only a “thin veneer” of democracy.
Researcher Jude Kagoro, who studies African police, said most Ugandan officers do not see themselves as neutral.
He stated they view it as their duty to support the incumbent power and often require no explicit order to use brute force.
The regime uses a system informally known as “ghetto structures” to infiltrate opposition groups.
Under this system, security officials recruit young people in opposition areas to disorganise activities and spy.
The government was caught by surprise by Bobi Wine’s rise ahead of the 2021 election, responding with extreme violence.
Analyst Kagoro said authorities have spent the last four years building an infrastructure to withstand opposition pressure.
Authorities are now telling citizens to vote and return home immediately on election day.
“The regime wants to make people very scared so they don’t come out to vote,” said David Lewis Rubongoya, secretary-general of Wine’s National Unity Platform.
A spate of arrests and abductions targeting the opposition has made grassroots organising “way too dangerous,” according to Uganda expert Kristof Titeca.
He said the high price of political engagement has left only a core group of supporters.
“What’s left is a group of core supporters. Is there a grassroots opposition? No, there isn’t.”
