The Museveni Succession

On how one of Africa’s storied leaders squandered his legacy and will likely plunge his nation into constitutional chaos when he leaves office.

I: Anatomy of political decay in Uganda

The presidency of Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni (1986-present) offers important lessons on the nature of power (and leadership) in most African countries. Throughout the region, social and economic realities have historically imposed severe structural limits to rulers’ power, authority, and ability to transform their societies (see here and here). State-building, nation-building, and cultivation of popular legitimacy are all expensive endeavors in low-income multiethnic postcolonial societies. Yet it is hard to expand economies — in order to afford state/nation building and cultivation of legitimacy — without some traction on these three dimensions.

This, in part, explains the last 60 years of failed attempts by African leaders to escape the bad equilibrium of weak statehood, fractious identity politics, weakly institutionalized electoralism, and poor economic performance. Instead of being able to transform their societies’ socio-economic conditions,…