Yoweri Museveni

I

Introduction

Yoweri Museveni, born in 1944, president of Uganda (1986- ). Almost single-handedly, Museveni transformed Uganda from a lawless and impoverished state into a politically and economically stable and promising country.

II

Early Life

Yoweri Museveni was born in Ntungamo, in southwestern Uganda, to a wealthy cattle herder. He belongs to the Nyankole ethnic group. The name Museveni was given to him in honor of the Seventh Battalion of the British colonial army, in which thousands of Ugandans served during World War II (1939-1945). He was educated in local schools and attended the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, where he became involved in radical nationalist politics. In December 1968 Museveni began to learn the techniques of guerrilla warfare when he visited the liberated zone in northern Mozambique under the auspices of the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (Frelimo), which fought against Portuguese colonial power. After graduating, Museveni returned to Uganda in 1970 and worked as a researcher in the office of President Milton Obote, working for the government intelligence unit.

III

Resistance Leader

When Major General Idi Amin overthrew Obote’s government in 1971, Museveni fled to Tanzania, where Obote had received political asylum. Between 1971 and 1978 Museveni trained a small group of Ugandan resistance fighters. After Amin invaded Tanzania in late 1978, Museveni’s force, accompanied by the Tanzanian army, invaded Uganda and overthrew Amin in 1979. Museveni was made the Minister of Defense and then the Minister of Regional Cooperation during the interim period leading up to elections in 1980. He was a popular figure, but his newly formed political party, the Uganda Patriotic Movement, was soundly defeated in the elections, when Obote was returned as president.

Believing that Obote’s government was corrupt and repressive, Museveni retreated into his rural strongholds to form the National Resistance Army. In January 1986 Museveni led his army to a successful military coup and took over as president.

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IV

President of Uganda

After gaining power, Museveni established democratic assemblies, called Resistance Councils, in every village throughout the country, bringing democracy to the Ugandan peasants for the first time. The new government also created a broad-based cabinet by inviting many of its opponents to join the cabinet and take high positions in the army and the civil service. Economically, Museveni adopted a World Bank structural adjustment program that curbed runaway inflation, privatized large sectors of the economy, and encouraged the diversification of Uganda's exports.

Museveni established a unique system of nonparty popular democracy. In his view, all existing Ugandan political parties competed on the basis of religion and ethnicity, and these divisions helped bring about the conflicts and chaos of the previous decades. For this reason, only the National Resistance Movement (NRM), open to all Ugandans, was allowed to contest elections. Under this system, Museveni was elected to a five-year term as president in 1996. The nonparty system was upheld in a 2000 national referendum, but in 2005 Ugandan voters chose to switch to a multiparty system. Museveni was reelected in 2001 and after the constitution was amended to allow him to seek a third term, he was reelected in 2006. Museveni published his autobiography, Sowing the Mustard Seed, in 1997.