Discourse around the refusal of President Donald J. Trump to concede defeat is fascinating. A major school of thought is that it is highly Machiavellian for US Senators to assert that the US presidential election results are faulty, while the results for the senators elected at the same time are okay.  How so poignant and relevant this status quo is for Uganda.

President Museveni’s election results have at least on two occasions been branded faulty by opposition members of parliament (MPs) who were elected on the same day with the president.  Each time, those MPs swore in and served; while at the same time they insisted that the presidential election results were faulty.

The hypocrisies of how ‘the world’ is treating the US situation in comparison to how it treated the Uganda situation are so glaring.

“Opposition members who competed for both the presidential seat and a seat in parliament contested the results of the election, and the primary opposition candidate Kizza Besigye was placed under house arrest. International observers questioned the integrity of the results.”

Ryan Gibbs in “The Elections in Uganda, February 2016.”

In the Uganda case, indeed, ‘the world’,  including US diplomats, were okay to assert that President Museveni’s election results were faulty; while at the same time those of the MPs elected at the same time were okay.

‘The world’, for example, did not pressure Ugandan opposition MPs not to take the oath of office as is being done to US Senators who are questioning president elect Biden’s win. The ‘international community’ instead insisted that President Museveni’s win was faulty.

As we move into the next Uganda presidential and parliamentary elections that are scheduled for 14^th January 2021, one can already sense that President Museveni’s election results will be discredited, while those of the MPs elected on the same day will not.

I often find it absolutely amazing that ‘the world’ will insist that President Museveni lost the election, while nearly 70 percent of the MPs that were elected at the same time are of his party. It simply defies logic that from among the numerous opposition groupings in Uganda, sharing only 30 percent of MPs, an opposition candidate can emerge victor against president Museveni.

How likely is it, for example, that in constituencies where NRM candidates have already been declared un-opposed that one of President Museveni’s rivals will garner the majority vote? It simply defies logic to think so.

One is persuaded that the most prudent course is for the opposition in Uganda to focus on first changing the dynamic at the lower levels – district local governments and parliament – and the change at presidential level will be inevitable. Otherwise, to think that we can democratically change from president downwards is ill-advised in the context of Uganda.

MAGA hats @Amazon.com