Bobi Wine, one of the fiercest critics of Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni, has suffered multiple arrests/FILE

Uganda was a pioneer in institutionalising youth participation in decision-making. Youth engagement in political structures is considered to be a tool for government control. We found that young politicians felt that this flawed system of representation provided opportunities for mobilising both against and in favour of the current regime.

Africa has the world’s largest youth population. By 2030, 75% of the African population will be under the age of 35. The number of young Africans aged 15-24 is projected to reach 500 million in 2080. 

While population dynamics vary across the continent, most sub-Saharan countries have a median age below 19. Niger is the youngest country in the world with a median age of 14.5, while South Africa, Seychelles, Tunisia and Algeria have median ages above 27. 

These demographics are a potential force for growth. However, the potential of Africa’s demographic dividend has been overshadowed by concerns among governments and international donors about the relationship between large youth populations, unemployment rates and political instability. 

Many countries with large youth populations and high rates of youth unemployment and under-employment remain peaceful. But the dominant policy narrative is that unemployed youth pose a threat to stability. 

Further, the role of youth in popular protest – such as in Sudan in 2019 – has created high expectations about their role in countering autocratic governments and contributing to democracy.

As political scientists and sociologists, we’re interested in understanding the interaction between youth and autocratic regimes – especially as elected autocracies are taking hold in Africa. 

Electoral autocracies are regimes elected into power using authoritarian strategies. These include manipulation of elections and repression of the opposition, independent media and civil society. 

Our research focuses on the interactions between youth and regimes in Ethiopia, Mozambique, Uganda and Zimbabwe. All are cases of electoral autocracies. These regimes are aware of their large youth populations and are sometimes challenged by them. Uganda’s Bobi Wine, a popular musician turned presidential candidate, is one example. 

The four countries in our study have also been through civil wars, where the victorious armed groups have taken power and stayed in power since the end of the war. This has created a particular set of dynamics between the ageing rebel governments and the youth majorities. 

In autocratic contexts like these ones, efforts to empower youth can easily be manipulated to serve the interests of the regime. Some young people may decide to play the game and take up opportunities offered by regime actors. Others might resist them. Some take up the opportunities, hoping it serves their own and not the regime’s interests. Still, this might reproduce forms of patronage.

All of this matters because the future of democracy is at stake, and using state-led opportunities might contribute to authoritarian renewal. Our research teams in each country studied the range of policies that governments put in place to “cater” for the youth. They included loans for young entrepreneurs, and setting up youth councils and youth quotas in political institutions. 

We found that youth-targeted strategies – largely aimed at promoting employment and political participation – are part of the authoritarian rule book in all four countries we studied. Employment and entrepreneurship schemes were open to abuse through ruling party patronage networks and channelled to regime supporters. 

Our research found that young people in Ethiopia, Mozambique, Uganda and Zimbabwe felt aggrieved about these opportunities being channelled to regime supporters. They also noted the lack of opportunities to have a meaningful voice. Institutions that were established to enable youth participation were co-opted and lacked independence from governments. 

Some young people express their grievances through pro-democracy protests – like in Mozambique in October 2023. But overall, Africa’s youth are not saving democracy. Neither are they countering the deepening trend of autocratisation on the continent, where incumbent governments have increasingly concentrated power in the hands of the executive. Our research has confirmed this in Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Ethiopia and Uganda.

Case studies 

In Zimbabwe, Zanu-PF has been in power since the country’s independence in 1980. The ruling party and many of its now ageing leaders use their history of having been part of the liberation war in the 1970s to retain their hold on power. 

They do so by creating narratives around the country’s liberation history and patriotism, and accuse the “born-free” generation (those born after independence) of betraying the liberation war. This delegitimises any discontent young people may feel. Zanu-PF targets young people among its wider repertoire of strategies to maintain power. 

In Mozambique, the ruling party Frelimo has won every election since 1992. The party has concentrated power and resources in the hands of the political elite. The youth continue to be under-represented and have serious challenges in accessing resources.

This, in addition to other conflict dynamics, contributed to an insurgency in the northern region of Cabo Delgado from 2017. It’s led by the radical religious group locally called Al-Shabaab, or sometimes “machababo” (the youth).Youth-dominated protests in Ethiopia contributed to the 2018 fall of the ruling party that had been in power since 1991. They also led to the coming to power of Abiy Ahmed that year. 

Mobilisation among the youth has since been silenced. Only loyalists get access to job creation schemes. There has also been a militarising of youth-dominated ethnic movements. This was seen, for instance, with the Fano Amhara group in the war in Tigray in 2020-2022. 

Uganda was a pioneer in institutionalising youth participation in decision-making. Youth engagement in political structures is considered to be a tool for government control. We found that young politicians felt that this flawed system of representation provided opportunities for mobilising both against and in favour of the current regime. Young candidates running for one of the youth quota seats in parliament, for instance, can’t easily evade ruling party patronage.

Way forward.  

Young Africans are diverse. However, they have often been characterised as either violent or as changemakers and peace activists. These characterisations represent opposite ends of a spectrum. 

Our research project engaged a diversity of young people positioned and constantly moving across different parts of the spectrum. This has enhanced our understanding of how they navigate and respond to the ways their regimes seek to handle the youth population. 

In our view, research and policy initiatives towards young people in authoritarian states must acknowledge that well-intended youth interventions may reproduce authoritarian politics when they are channelled to party loyalists. 

Interventions that aim to promote job creation and youth empowerment should monitor how youth participants are selected and funds disbursed to avoid interference from partisan actors.NG. 

Authors

1. Lovise Aalen | Research Professor, Political Science, Chr. Michelsen Institute
2. Marjoke Oosterom | Research Fellow and Cluster Leader, Power and Popular Politics research cluster, Institute of Development Studies. Source: Capital News

Conservative rebels who are pushing for a tougher immigration policy will this week open talks with ministers which will decide whether they continue their revolt.

MPs including Suella Braverman and Robert Jenrick have pledged to strengthen the Safety of Rwanda Bill which is designed to ensure the Government’s flagship asylum scheme can no longer be blocked by the courts.

They have threatened to table amendments to the legislation which would lead to a fresh Commons showdown later this month.

But first the rebels will meet with the Government this week to discuss whether they can reach a compromise, a source told i.

If there is no agreement they will seek to amend the bill when it returns to Parliament – although centrist Conservatives have warned they could vote the legislation down altogether if it goes too far in setting aside human rights laws.

Mr Jenrick told the Sunday Times: “The Prime Minister is saying that he will not allow a foreign court to block removals to Rwanda when the Government’s stated legal position today is that to do so would be a clear breach of international law.

“Why would you bring forward a bill which your own legal advice – which has proven to be wrong and optimistic in the past – is saying has a 50 per cent chance, at best, of getting a single flight off to Rwanda? That’s an act of self-harm. We’re running out of road, and at the end of the road, there’s a precipice.”

When the bill was first debated by the Commons last month, around two dozen rebels refused to vote for it. They said they would reserve the right to vote against at the next stage, which would put Rishi Sunak in danger of defeat.

The Prime Minister has been forced to deny that he had fought with Boris Johnson over the principle of sending asylum seekers to Rwanda as a means of deterring them from crossing the English Channel to reach Britain in the first place.

Leaked documents revealed that when he was Chancellor, he refused to commit the funding requested by the then-Prime Minister and Priti Patel, who was Home Secretary.

Mr Sunak told the BBC on Sunday: “I discussed it with the Prime Minister and ultimately funded the plans and the scheme, and my job now as Prime Minister is to get it up and running and I believe that it’s really important because it’s about deterrence.” 

Pressed on why he had fought other ministers over the scheme, he said: “As Chancellor, my job is to scrutinise and ask tough questions of every single proposal that crosses my desk. I mean that’s my job, or was when I was Chancellor… ultimately this is all taxpayers’ money and just because someone’s asking tough questions doesn’t mean that they don’t believe in the proposal.”  By Hugo Gye, The i

Arianna received the call when she was out shopping. Her neighbour had seen a TikTok video falsely alleging that Arianna, a transgender woman, was forcing young men to take hormones and demanded an explanation.

She came home a few hours later to find an angry mob gathered outside her front door. “When they saw me, they started grabbing me and shouting that I needed to die,” said Arianna. “The only thing I remember next was waking up in hospital.”

Arianna still has bruises on her legs and body from the attack in October. She was beaten so badly she spent two weeks in a coma. Now she is staying at a safehouse with 20 other transgender people on the outskirts of Kampala, Uganda’s capital. 

It is a cramped space with mattresses spread out over the bedroom floors and tattered pictures of happier times decorating the walls. The residents avoid the garden and talk in hushed voices to not arouse the suspicion of their neighbours, whose homes overlook the safehouse compound.

“We have no freedom,” said Arianna. “I can’t go to the market, I can’t work, because if I go out, I will be a target.”

The LGBTQ+ community has long faced abuse and attacks in Uganda, a deeply religious country with a history of passing homophobic legislation. But LGBTQ+ people and activists say the level of harassment has soared since the country’s president, Yoweri Museveni, signed a new draconian anti-gay bill in May.

The US State Department has described the bill, which received strong backing from church groups, as “one of the most extreme anti-LGBTQ+ laws in the world”. In addition to imposing the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality”, the legalisation includes a provision for life imprisonment and requires citizens to inform the police if they suspect someone “intends to commit the offence of homosexuality”. 

We are being beaten and chased out of our homes. If they see you wearing a rainbow bracelet, the police will arrest you

Not only has the law emboldened homophobic vigilantes, who feel free to attack LGBTQ+ people with impunity, it also means members of the LGBTQ+ community with HIV and other conditions no longer access healthcare because doctors are too scared to treat them, said Ruthra, a transgender man who runs the shelter.

“We are being beaten, we are being chased out of our houses.” Pointing to the rainbow bracelet on his wrist, Ruthra said: “If they see even this, the police will arrest you.”

The Human Rights Awareness and Promotion Forum (HRAPF), a civil society group, says landlords have evicted hundreds of LGBTQ+ tenants since the bill was signed. HRAPF has also recorded over 140 attacks and threats against LGBTQ+ people over the same period.

“LGBT persons have never been at peace in Uganda, but the act has given the green light for attacks by homophobic people,” said Saida Nakilima, a lawyer with HRAPF.

The latest came last Wednesday when a young, openly gay activist named Steven Kabuye was attacked with a knife by motorbike-riding assailants. Before he was rushed to the hospital, Kabuye recorded a video of himself lying on the street, his forearm slashed wide open and the blade still lodged in his abdomen.

The bill has drawn sharp international condemnation. The US has imposed visa restrictions on Ugandan officials and the World Bank stopped all finance to the country. But it has found support elsewhere in Africa, where several countries are weighing up similar pieces of anti-gay legislation. There was a spike in violent rhetoric, police harassment and attacks targeting LGBTQ+ people across the continent in 2023, which activists say Uganda’s bill helped to fuel.

Last month, Burundi’s president, Évariste Ndayishimiye, said gay people should be rounded up and stoned in sports stadiums. Ghana’s parliament is debating a bill that carries 10-year jail terms for LGBTQ+ rights activists. In Kenya, the president, William Ruto, is embroiled in a row with his supreme court over a ruling allowing activists to legally register LGBTQ+ groups.

Last year, police arrested activists in Zambia for promoting LGBTQ+ rights, while gay men in Ethiopia faced violent attacks amid a torrent of abusive videos on TikTok calling for homosexuals to be stripped naked, publicly whipped and burned.

African political and religious leaders have repeatedly branded homosexuality a western import that does not align with their traditional values. Yet activists allege that American evangelical Christian groups are playing a prominent role in fanning anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment on the continent, where many countries still have ­colonial-era laws against sodomy.

In 2020 an investigation by the media outlet OpenDemocracy found that US Christian organisations spent at least $54m influencing laws against LGBTQ+ rights, access to contraceptives and sex education across Africa over 13 years.

In Uganda, several religious American groups have set up and provided funding to local Christian organisations “to carry their message” against LGBTQ+ rights, said Nicholas Opiyo of Chapter Four, a Ugandan civil rights group. Family Watch International, an Arizona-based organisation, has faced accusations it has helped influence and even draft Uganda’s bill, as well as homophobic legislation in Kenya, which it denies. The organisation’s founder, Sharon Slater, is thought to be close to Uganda’s President Museveni.

Another American Christian group, the World Congress of Families, allegedly contributed to Ghana’s homophobic bill, but has denied having an input.

“It’s part of their culture war,” said Opiyo. “They’re losing the debate in the US and they are looking for fertile ground where they can reignite this debate. Uganda is the perfect place because the evangelical movement is very strong here.”

Chapter Four and HRAPF launched a legal challenge against Uganda’s anti-gay law last month. In 2014, the country’s courts overturned a previous piece of homophobic legislation on procedural grounds. This time the lawyers are arguing the law violates constitutional rights to equality, dignity and privacy.

A ruling is expected soon. Even if the law is overturned, conditions for LGBTQ+ people are unlikely to improve, said Opiyo. “The damage has been done. People have been militarised against the LGBTQ+ community. There is complete social terror. So whether the law is upheld or nullified by the courts, that will do very little to change the now deeply-rooted exclusion of LGBTQ+ individuals in Uganda.”

At the safehouse in Kampala, the residents shared stories of relationships breaking under the strain of living under the bill and of endless police harassment. “The police officers treat you like a bank – they know they can take money from you and you can do nothing,” said one.

Vinka, a transgender woman, described how she was beaten by her neighbours in July after they had seen a video on social media “outing” her. She fled to another safe house in August, leaving behind her belongings.

But a mob of about 20 people discovered the safe house in September and turned up with ropes and cans of petrol. They burned the place down and marched the residents to a police station. Vinka subsequently spent a month in jail, where she was gang-raped several times by other inmates. It was her seventh stint in prison.

She fears another raid. She is scared to go outside but sometimes ventures out to do sex work, the only way she can pay for the hormones she needs to transition, a process she is undertaking with no medical guidance.

At 23 years old, her dream is to finish school and then study psychology at university. Instead, she is trapped inside, dogged by suicidal thoughts. “We are treated like we are nothing,” Vinka said. “But I am human. I have blood.” By Nicholas Opiyo, Human Rights Activist, Uganda, Guardian/Yahoo News