Change in Uganda: A New Opening?

Issue Date April 2004
Volume 15
Issue 2
Page Numbers 125-39
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Over the last 18 years, the National Resistance Movement (NRM) under the leadership of President Yoweri Museveni has ruled Uganda on the basis of a “non-party” semi-authoritarian regime. Since the beginning of 2003, they have been compelled to open the system up to uncontrolled multiparty competition. A number of factors explain this shift. including the persistence of opposition insurgency; the continuing opposition of the country’s two traditional parties; movement towards political pluralism in the two neighboring states with which Uganda has intimate economic, cultural and political relations; and the larger global political environment that continues to delegitimize authoritarian or even semi-authoritarian regimes. However, the ongoing processes of change are fraught with a great deal of uncertainties.

About the Author

Edward Kannyo is visiting associate professor of political science at the Rochester Institute of Technology. He is coauthor of Controversial Presidential Decisions in Foreign Policy (1997) and the author of numerous articles on politics in Congo (Kinshasa) and Uganda and on international human rights.

View all work by Edward Kannyo