The current infighting in the ruling NRM between the executive and parliament on the one hand, and the increasing confrontations between the opposition and the Uganda government on the other, are being seen by analysts as signs of a convergence of forces aimed at dislodging President Yoweri Museveni from State House.

The opposition is going for the impeachment of Museveni, giving 98 grounds that revolve around corruption and rule of law, as the basis upon which the president should be indicted.

The motion, sponsored by Aruu County legislator Samuel Odonga Otto and Rubaga South MP John Ken Lukyamuzi, has been greeted with derision by the ruling party, but the opposition insists it will expose Museveni’s eroding credibility.

“In the 50 years of Uganda’s Independence, we have not had an occurrence of this kind. We are taking this on because we are growing politically, and must show that we can cause change through debate, without going through a bush war,” said Mr Lukyamuzi, who revealed that 60 MPs had appended their signatures to his impeachment motion by the time of going to press. The motion requires two-thirds of parliament — 125 legislators — to proceed.

Mr Lukyamuzi also detailed some of the critical grounds why Museveni should be impeached: The use of £30 million in British aid that was diverted in 2008 to purchase the presidential jet without parliamentary approval; currency mismanagement by the central bank, on Museveni’s orders, that has seen inflation rise from single digits to 29 per cent in two and a half years; and the $740 million purchase of fighter jets without parliament’s sanction last year.

But while the ruling party is expected to easily defeat the impeachment motion, the opposition has undeniably gained new momentum over the past one year.

Since the Walk to Work protests last year, foreign direct investment has shrunk: Between July and September 2011, the Uganda Investment Authority licensed 49 investment projects worth $112 million, compared with 93 projects worth $340 million in the same period the previous year. In the April-June quarter, UIA records also indicate a 31 per cent drop in planned investment projects, from $85 million to $45 million. Equally, there was a 32 per cent drop in the number of projects registered, from 95 in 2011 to 49 for the same period in 2010.

By coincidence, the April-June quarter saw the highest incidence of Walk to Work protests when the opposition took to the streets over the rising food, fuel and commodity prices.

This was also the period in which Museveni took oath for his fourth elective term on May 12, an occasion that brought an embarrassing episode in his 26-year rule, when in the full glare of the visiting heads of state, the crowds ditched the inauguration at Kololo Independence Grounds, preferring instead to swarm Entebbe Road to welcome back opposition strongman Kizza Besigye, who had spent 12 days in Nairobi getting treatment for wounds sustained earlier at the hands of security personnel during one of the protests. 

In the meantime, tourism has also taken a battering and other key sectors of the economy such as agriculture and manufacturing are in recession, having posted negative growth in the first two quarters of 2011/2012 financial year, sources at the Ministry of Finance revealed.

The shilling is increasingly unstable, spooking investors, even with expected oil revenues, which will not come in before 2017 at the earliest, the regime is precariously poised.

In spite of all this, political economy analysts argue that Museveni is not about to lose his grip on power.

However, his style of politics, they say, is a huge risk for Uganda’s economy. 

The other problem is that Museveni’s government is almost broke and to keep going, according to Joel D. Barkan of the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies, the Ugandan leader will employ “oil rents” to perpetuate himself in power, pretty much like Libya’s Gaddafi.

Museveni governed brilliantly for 10 years, but has overstayed his time and risks transforming himself into a Mugabe,” Mr Barkan said last week. 

(Read: Museveni says constitution ‘blocking his way’)

What will this do to FDI flows long term? There are two possible scenarios: One, Uganda, which discovered commercially viable oil reserves in 2006 in the Albertine Rift, will continue to attract only investors in that sector. The other is that with a Museveni whose quality of governance is declining and slipping back into the 1980s “big man” style of African politics, investing in Uganda will become unattractive for companies from the West.

“Uganda will attract the nontraditional small investors. In other words, no significant FDI from the West will be registered. There will be a lot of ‘hot money’ , but not investments that require large capital expenditure,” said Mr Barkan, who wrote a CSIS report in June last year on the political and economic risks that Uganda faces under Museveni.