The house of each Ugandan president, State Home, is nestled within the hilly uptown Nasakero space of the capital metropolis, Kampala.
For 4 a long time, it has been house to only one president – Yoweri Museveni, who has been in workplace longer than some other Ugandan chief.
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Following Thursday’s election, Museveni’s tight maintain on the nation has been prolonged for the seventh time. Though he confronted his largest challenger within the type of common opposition candidate and musician Robert “Bobi Wine” Kyagulanyi, the nation’s electoral fee declared that Museveni had gained with 72 p.c of the vote.
At 81, Museveni is the third-longest serving president on this planet.
His management over Uganda, analysts say, is absolute, and the appointment of his son, Normal Muhoozi Kainerugaba, as military chief again in 2024 has prompted worries amongst activists of a dynastic succession plan within the close to future.
In a younger nation the place about 70 p.c of the 46 million inhabitants is below 35, Museveni is the one president most Ugandans have ever identified. By the point he completes his newest time period in 2031, he may have served for 45 years.
Nevertheless, he’s not alone. Throughout Africa, from hilly Kampala to riverside Brazzaville, a number of “life-long” leaders like him have held onto energy for many years, regardless of organising routine elections that give their administrations the appearance of democratic rule.
Political specialists finding out these figures say at the least three of them: Museveni of Uganda, Paul Biya of Cameroon, and Sassou Nguesso of the Republic of the Congo, have perfected distinctive formulation that assist them consolidate energy, utilizing instruments like compromised elections, divide and rule techniques, and highly effective overseas alliances.
Al Jazeera reached out to the three governments for feedback, however didn’t get a response.
In Uganda, combating corruption ‘with corruption’
For Museveni, violence is used as a way to suppress dissent and preserve allies in examine, Kampala-based political analyst Job Kiija informed Al Jazeera.
The regional strongman was first sworn in as president again in 1986, after he led the insurgent Nationwide Resistance Military to overturn an unpopular civilian administration in a violent six-year battle now often known as the Ugandan Bush Conflict. He has remained president below the rebranded Nationwide Resistance Motion.
Museveni’s concepts of management had been possible formed early on, as a political science scholar in neighbouring Tanzania, researchers observe. On the time, he studied thinker and anti-colonial theorist Frantz Fanon’s concept of violence.
Violence, Fanon wrote in his guide, The Wretched of the Earth, was the best type of political battle, one obligatory for decolonisation. In his closing yr thesis (PDF), Museveni targeted on that concept and wholly supported the thinker’s place.
Quite than apply that pondering to a colonial power, nonetheless, Museveni has unleashed it on opposition leaders, journalists, and activists in Uganda, Kiija mentioned.
In 2020, when Bobi Wine first emerged on the political scene below the umbrella of the Nationwide Unity Social gathering, the opposition candidate instantly garnered widespread assist, notably from younger individuals. Ugandan forces, nonetheless, responded forcefully to his rallies, killing many Bobi Wine supporters.
The identical situations performed out within the lead-up to this month’s election. Safety forces focused opposition rallies with extreme power and subjected opposition supporters to arbitrary arrests and torture, in accordance with a report from rights group Amnesty Worldwide.
Opposition figures are additionally routinely jailed in Uganda. Kizza Besigye, a Museveni ally turned four-time presidential candidate, has been imprisoned since November 2024 on accusations of plotting to take away Museveni. He faces a treason cost, which is punishable by demise within the nation.
Inside his personal camp, Kiija mentioned, Museveni intentionally permits his allies to overstep their boundaries, after which holds their actions over their heads to discourage dissent.
“He permits individuals round him to dip their palms in state coffers, in order that they’re dirty, after which he makes use of that in opposition to them,” the analyst mentioned.
“Everybody round him – he has a portfolio on them, he is aware of how a lot you will have stolen, what you will have amassed, and that’s one of many causes we are able to’t combat corruption as a result of he makes use of that as a software to maintain individuals in examine.”
Uganda has suffered political instability since its independence from Britain in 1962. The British colonialists employed oblique rule and appointed members of the bulk Buganda tribe to necessary positions, whereas excluding others. Submit-colonial Uganda’s instability and weak establishments are partly attributed to that historical past, specialists say.
In 2005, the Ugandan parliament eliminated time period limits from the structure, paving the best way for Museveni to run indefinitely.
Though wealthy in gold, oil, and money crops like espresso, the nation is reliant on Western help. Museveni positions the nation as a stabilising power within the Nice Lakes area, contributing troops to regional missions, equivalent to within the combat in opposition to the al-Shabab armed group in Somalia, thus gaining Western assist.
Uganda additionally hosts two million refugees from South Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and Sudan – greater than some other African nation.
Amongst its largest donors is the USA. Washington contributed about $970m in yearly improvement help, primarily for well being and humanitarian wants, though US considerations over democratic backsliding and Uganda’s criminalisation of same-sex relations strained ties. The present Trump administration has, nonetheless, severely minimize help globally, affecting the nation.
Whereas Museveni was the clear favorite to win Thursday’s vote, Bobi Wine has dismissed the outcomes as “pretend”. In the meantime, eyes at the moment are on how Museveni’s eldest little one, Kainerugaaba, shall be positioned within the close to future. The 51-year-old, Kiija mentioned, is clearly being groomed for the highest job.
Cameroon’s ‘absentee president’
Simply months earlier than Museveni soared to a simple victory, on the alternative aspect of the continent, Biya, the 92-year-old president of Cameroon, gained an eighth term in workplace in October’s presidential polls.
Biya, who heads the governing Cameroon Folks’s Democratic Motion (RDPC), has been in energy since 1982 and is the world’s oldest sitting president. The nation’s parliament eliminated time period limits in 2008, and final yr’s win provides him one other seven years on the helm.
The president is understood for spending in depth durations away from the highlight and even overseas, incomes him the nickname “absentee president”. There have been frequent speculations about his well being, with rumours of his death circulating on social media every now and then, just for the president to pop up briefly on nationwide tv.
Nonetheless, few Cameroonians, least of all politician Kah Walla, had been stunned when Biya gained one other time period.
Walla, 60, who competed in three previous presidential races, informed Al Jazeera that the president makes use of the very software important to democracies: elections.
“We dwell in an electoral autocracy the place the dictator has found out how you can use elections as one of many devices to maintain himself in energy,” she mentioned, including that the electoral physique is actually an extension of the federal government.
Manu Lekunze, a lecturer in worldwide relations on the College of Aberdeen in Scotland, informed Al Jazeera that Biya makes use of well-funded info campaigns to “divide-and-rule” between Cameroon’s a number of ethnic teams.
Biya’s marketing campaign machine usually harps on how opposition politicians will symbolize solely their ethnic teams, he mentioned. Biya himself enjoys assist from his Beti tribe, the adjoining majority Bamileke-Bamus, and the Fulanis by staying near conventional leaders.
“He believes he’s going to dwell for a very long time,” Lekunze mentioned. “[He] has an ethnic coalition that can assist him regardless, and he makes use of that to get the easy majority he wants, which makes him actually comfy in energy.”
Like Museveni, Biya can be accused of utilizing violence – however “selectively”, Walla famous. Some Cameroonians, she mentioned, refuse to name their nation a “dictatorship” as a result of there’s a semblance of freedom.
“Biya realised that you want to give individuals a channel to vent so the resistance gained’t construct,” Walla mentioned.
“You may go on TV and say something concerning the president, and nothing may occur, however another person may say the identical factor, and even much less, and be punished [arrested] for it. In order that has led individuals to self-censor as a result of no one is aware of the place the road is.”
At the least 48 people had been killed by safety forces throughout protests in assist of opposition candidate Issa Tchiroma, who claimed Biya’s win in October as fraudulent, and declared himself the winner. The now-exiled Tchiroma deserted Biya’s authorities to run within the elections and gained assist from his Fulani group, in addition to a number of others.
In 2016, safety forces additionally notably cracked down on the nation’s minority Anglophone areas – the Southwest and Northwest areas – after lecturers and legal professionals there took to the streets to decry the dearth of alternatives for English-speakers. British and French colonial rule noticed two distinct entities merged after independence, however the imbalance tilts in favour of the bulk Francophone inhabitants.
The violent authorities response escalated into an ongoing rise up, with armed teams combating for the secession of an impartial state, Ambazonia.
Surrounding Biya is a good elite that Lekunze says advantages from the established order, together with Ferdinand Ngoh-Ngoh, the nation’s secretary-general and de facto president. Nevertheless, Biya has by no means recognized or visibly groomed a successor.
There are fears that the dearth of a single, identified face to rally round within the case of Biya’s demise may trigger political turmoil inside his occasion, and certain, the nation. Walla, although, believes that will be useful.
“Ought to he go away, we shall be in a particularly unsure place, however it’s nonetheless in our greatest pursuits to take to the streets at that time as a result of if we don’t, the system will perpetuate itself,” she mentioned.
Energy, petroleum, overseas backers in Congo-Brazzaville
Regardless of protests within the streets and unrest amongst opposition figures in Cameroon and Uganda, the 2 pivotal presidential elections ended with no actual change in leaderships which were cemented over a long time.
In the meantime, one other octogenarian is search one more time period below comparable situations. Within the Republic of the Congo, 81-year-old President Denis Sassou Nguesso, who has held workplace for 40 years, is ready to run once more within the March 2026 vote below his Congo Labour Social gathering.
Nguesso was first elected to workplace in 1979 and led the nation for 12 years earlier than shedding elections. On his second try in 1997, he seized energy in a bloody civil warfare, and has remained in workplace since. In 2015, Nguesso additionally pushed by way of a controversial referendum that eliminated presidential time period limits.
Beneath him, Congo has remained grossly underdeveloped regardless of its oil wealth, with primary infrastructure missing as a consequence of corruption, mentioned Andrea Ngombert, the exiled founding father of Sassoufit, a gaggle advocating for Nguesso’s exit.
Highly effective overseas alliances, Ngombert famous, have helped Nguesso consolidate energy for many years as he retains a safe maintain on highly effective entities, together with by way of marriage.
His daughter, the late Edith Bongo, married into the dynastic Bongo household, which dominated Gabon for many years till a navy coup in 2023.
Nguesso was additionally a powerful ally of the late Angolan president, Jose Eduardo dos Santos. When he returned to grab energy, a thousand Angolan forces supported his “Ninja” militia and helped safe his victory.
The president equally had backing from France, which supplied him with arms in the course of the warfare to guard oil investments in Congo, Ngombert mentioned.
“He is not only working on a continental stage, however on a global one,” the activist mentioned.
“He has his nostril in everybody’s enterprise, and he is aware of when to tug your secrets and techniques out to manage you. Everybody is aware of in the event you want issues to work, you should have Nguesso in your aspect.”
Ngueso’s affect in Paris has, nonetheless, plummeted since 2013, after stress from civil society lastly pressured France to launch investigations into his household’s quite a few belongings in Europe and the US. In 2022, French authorities seized property belonging to his son, Denis-Christel Sassou Nguesso.
Rather than France, observers say Nguesso has turned to China.
Beijing provides the federal government loans and overseas direct funding, and might use its veto energy to protect Nguesso from attainable scrutiny on the United Nations in return for profitable oil offers, Ngombert mentioned. Nguesso has additionally defended China within the face of reported rights violations in Xinjiang and Hong Kong, and is in opposition to the popularity of Taiwan as a sovereign state.
“On this association, China is the shark and Congo-Brazzaville the remora – an asymmetrical however symbiotic relationship during which one feeds off the opposite and removes dangerous parasites, whereas the opposite gives safety from different predators,” Ngombert added.
Are free elections at stake in Africa?
Throughout Africa, observers argue, the three leaders and several other others have used power, divisive techniques, and overseas backing to safe and preserve energy.
Satirically, analysts say, they’ve additionally perfected utilizing elections – meant to be a vital democratic software – to disenfranchise residents.
“Elections have change into a ritual, a manner of simply ticking the field for these leaders, however they aren’t held meaningfully for residents who need to have the ability to categorical their emotions with votes,” Tendai Mbanje, an elections skilled at South Africa’s College of Pretoria, informed Al Jazeera.
“Electoral establishments have been captured and have deviated from their mandate, and the individuals main them haven’t any integrity, as most are political appointees,” he added.
But, regardless of this bleak outlook, African international locations don’t have the posh to discard elections: residents can’t afford to cease voting or requesting truthful electoral situations, he warned.
“We should always not abandon elections as a result of they continue to be the one official manner for residents to state their selection,” Mbanje mentioned.
“What individuals have to do is to withstand – by way of protests, by way of authorized mobilisation. Opposition leaders, citizen actions, and non secular leaders should all rise in resistance.”
