Museveni has relied on the support of the army to stay in power indefinitely. Photo Getty Images/AFP

Yoweri Museveni, 76, is scheduled to be sworn in as Uganda's head of state for a sixth five-year term on Wednesday.

He is not expected to change the autocratic style he has developed over the last 35 years, nor the system of patronage and corruption which has been crucial to enabling his longevity in power.

By hijacking state institutions to serve his own ends, Museveni managed to have Parliament twice alter the constitution to allow him to run for president, first removing a two-term limit in 2005 and then abolishing the age limit of 75 in 2017.

The president seized power in 1986, after a five-year guerrilla struggle. At the time, he was enthusiastically welcomed by a population weary of bloodshed, successive despots and ineffectual military juntas.

Elected president 10 years later, Museveni gained the West's trust by stabilizing a country prone to coups and conflict since independence in 1962.

He invited the Asian minority — expelled by Idi Amin a decade earlier — back into the country and put in place a mixed-economy model, which helped promote growth. This opened the door to substantial foreign assistance which has flowed in ever since, and which has helped consolidate growth, in turn stabilizing Museveni's regime.

Museveni will 'remain in power' with military support

Teddy Atim, who was born in 1986, has only ever known a country ruled by Museveni. She told DW that she voted for him because she hoped to benefit from the government's business startup capital fund, Emyooga.

"I know that in the next five years we are going to benefit from planned government projects," Atim said.

Mwambutsya Mwebesa, a historian at Makerere University, is skeptical of the president's promises.

"Uganda is a very poor country. He [Museveni] found it a least developing country and it is still a least developing country now," he told DW.

The government projects were the right card to play though, he added, because "poor people do not always struggle for human rights issues or even political rights issues. They normally pursue survival rights issues."

Asked if he could discern a possible successor for Museveni, he said the president "will remain in power for as long as the military is behind him."

Opposition leader Bobi Wine calls out persecution of opposition

A politicized security apparatus has been a key factor of Museveni's survival in power for more than three decades. It was effectively deployed in the run-up to the presidential election in January against restless urban youth, who were enthralled by the promise of renewal. This was represented by charismatic opposition politician Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, a musician who goes by the artistic name Bobi Wine.

Himself a target of persecution on the eve and in the wake of the polls, Wine has called attention to the suffering of Museveni's political opponents.

"Hundreds of young people, young men and women supporting the People Power Movement and the National Unity Platform, the movement and party which I lead, have been abducted by the government. Many have been murdered in detention," said Wine.

Several others were brutally tortured, Wine told DW in an exclusive interview on Monday.

In November, at least 54 people were killed in a protest that erupted after Wine was detained while campaigning. The ruthlessness shown by security forces led to protests from the West.

In April, Uganda's main donor, the United States, announced visa bans on government officials accused of human rights violations and repressive acts.

In February, the European Parliament called on member states to enact similar sanctions, although none were forthcoming. 

'Darling of the West'

Washington is not planning to cut to the development aid of around $970 million (€780 million) it provides yearly, almost half of the total donated to Kampala by all OECD members. That's without counting military aid.

The US visa bans have been largely met with indifference. "We are not going to lose sleep over this," said Uganda's state minister for foreign affairs, Okello Oryem, on April 16.

Nevertheless, in the grip of major economic and debt crises, Kampala has increasingly turned to China for financial help that is more free of criticism.

Western donors are unlikely to put too much pressure on Museveni's regime in view of Uganda's generous refugee policies. After all, the country has welcomed more than 1.4 million people from such conflict-ravaged countries as Congo and South Sudan.

Donors will likely turn a blind eye to Uganda's crucial role in attempts to appease the Great Lakes region and its significant contribution in the fight against terrorism in Somalia.

"This has made him a darling of the West," said analyst Mwebesa. 

An uncertain future

The discovery of oil in the Albertine Rift Basin in the western part of the country in 2006, which will likely make Uganda the fourth largest sub-Saharan oil producer by the end of the decade, is unlikely to encourage a global will to rein in Museveni's despotic tendencies.

Aware that Museveni will not voluntarily relinquish power anytime soon, opposition leader Bobi Wine has placed his hopes for change on Uganda's youth. The official youth unemployment rate of around 13% does not take into account underemployment, precarious work and wages too low to secure a living.

Measures like the recent introduction of a 12% tax on internet data — mostly seen as another repressive measure, like the ban on access to the social media platform Facebook — are bound to increase dissatisfaction among urban young people.

"We continue pushing on, knowing it is not going to be an overnight thing. But ultimately, we will get there," Wine told DW. - Frank Yiga and Liz Shoo, Deutsche Welle

PARIS: Climate change is set to devastate Kenya’s tea production as the world’s largest exporter faces rising temperatures, erratic rainfall and insect infestations, according to analysis released yesterday. Tea is the world’s most consumed drink after water and disruption in supply from the east African nation is predicted to have a global impact.

A report from the charity Christian Aid outlined the various threats Kenya faces to its key black tea crop, as well as the dangers that other countries are likely to encounter as the planet continues to warm. Citing a peer-reviewed study, the report said that the quadruple threat of rising temperatures, erratic rainfall, droughts and new insect infestations are forecast to destroy 26.2 percent of the country’s optimal tea growing areas by 2050.

And climate change is expected to reduce the areas with medium quality growing conditions by nearly 40 percent in the same time frame. “For generations we have carefully cultivated our tea farms and we are proud that the tea that we grow here is the best in the world,” said Richard Koskei, a tea farmer from Kenya’s western highlands. “But climate change poses a real threat to us. We cannot predict seasons anymore, temperatures are rising, and rainfall is more erratic.”

Karimi Kinoti, head of Christian Aid’s Africa division, said tea was just another example of how people living in countries least responsible for the climate crisis are bearing the heaviest burden. “Africans make up 17 percent of the world’s population but we generate just four percent of the greenhouse gas emissions that have caused the climate crisis,” she said. “And yet it is we who are suffering the brunt of the impacts of climate change.”

‘World will be watching’

The report warned that the livelihoods of more than three million people in Kenya’s tea industry would come under threat in the next two decades. Britain, the biggest per capita tea consumer, is set to host crunch UN climate talks in Glasgow in November. Mohamed Adow, director of the Power Shift Africa climate and energy think tank, said the COP26 negotiations presented a vital opportunity for richer nations to provide proper support for poorer ones already having to adapt to climate change.

“As a major historical polluter and the creator of the industrial revolution the UK has played a big part in the climate emergency which we Kenyans are suffering from,” he said. “This year, as hosts of the G7 and COP26, the UK has a big role to play in tackling it. “The whole world will be watching, especially Kenyan tea farmers and other people on the front lines of the climate crisis,” added Adow. – AFP/Kuwait Times

The Long March-5B Y2 rocket, carrying the core module of China's space station Tianhe, takes off from Wenchang Space Launch Center in Hainan province, China on Apr. 29.    © Reuters / May 9, 2021 10:08 JST

US and EU space authorities monitor possibility of dangerous landing.