Presenter, Dr. Moses Khisa, North Carolina State University Discussant, Dr. Adolf Mbaine, Makerere University For over three decades of Museveni and NRM rule, Uganda’s political landscape has had turns and twists. A relatively progressive national constitution was concluded in 1995 and the country returned to multiparty politics in 2005 simultaneous with the removal of presidential term limits. Sweeping changes were made to the supreme law of the land in 2005, hardly ten years since its promulgation, underscoring the limits and deficiencies of the 1995 constitutional compromise. The December 2017 removal of the cap on the age limit for president in effect eliminated the last redoubt and hurdle against life-presidency, raising questions about the fate and future of constitutionalism in Uganda. In recent years, the state took extreme measures against civil society, the media, and opposition parties in ways that underscore tensions and contestations. Overall, Uganda has taken a decidedly autocratic trajectory with a personalist regime of rule in ways that fundamentally depart from the early years of the NRM’s democratization promise and the consensus embodied in the 1995 constitution. This project recasts the analytical lens on the different angles and the range of explanations for the deepening autocratic rule in Uganda. The project brings together deeper, analytical, and empirical reflections on the evolution of Uganda’s ruling coalition, the state of political parties, the civil society landscape, the role of militarism, and gendered politics, among others. The book seeks to produce a rich and engaging collection that situates the current empirical political trajectory in a single post-1986 analytical lens built around a unified theme of autocratic adaptability.
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