Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni felt trapped into supporting Kenya’s President Mwai Kibaki by his role as the president of the East African Community during Kenya’s disputed elections held in December 2007.

But he also seemed to have learned a big lesson that could have guided the way he managed Uganda’s 2011 poll.

These revelations contained in one of the American diplomats cables leaked to Wikileaks paints a more nuanced picture of President Museveni’s hasty recognition of President Kibaki’s victory than has been previously imagined.

According to a cable written by Andrew Critton, the chief political adviser at the US Mission in Kampala, Museveni “felt trapped” into “recognising” Kibaki’s election, a move that the opposition in Uganda called “self-serving, and potentially troublesome for Uganda among Kenya’s Odinga supporters.”

In private, he was said to prefer power-sharing between Kibaki and Raila Odinga.

Public opinion in Uganda, he says “including within ruling party circles, is partly sympathetic to Odinga after what Ugandans describe as “clumsy rigging” by Kibaki.

Critics also saw parallels between Kibaki’s slim poll victory with their situation at home where Museveni’s margin of victory had been declining since he first came to power and it was projected to be even lower in the 2011 contest.

Tricky elections

“Politicians and the press in Kampala have pointed to the possible future parallel of Kenya and Uganda’s next elections in 2011, where Museveni’s popular vote could fall to around 50 per cent,” says the cable.

It would seem that after Kenya, Museveni concluded that small margins in African elections cause problems as they did in Ivory Coast in 2010 and in Guinea.

This motivated him to increase his effort to increase his victory gap in this year’s vote — 68.3 per cent, up from 58 per cent in 2006.

The cables reveal that President Museveni had in private preferred and proposed either a recount or a repeat of the 2007 Kenyan election following the disputed results that led to the post-election violence.

Museveni believed that the vote in Kenya was a virtual draw and that a political compromise was necessary, while at the same time advocating for some mechanism to address the issue of who legitimately won.

He also seemed to have been forced to act in haste for fear of the economic aftershocks resulting from the political crisis and worsening violence across the border, which blocked Uganda’s access to the port of Mombasa on the Kenyan Coast.

“Beyond the immediate and practical problems for Uganda of transportation vulnerability and refugees, Kenya is also causing political noise in Uganda,” said the cable.

But it is the lessons from the Kenyan elections that inform much about Museveni’s keen interest in Kenya’s politics.

The neck and neck race between President Kibaki and Odinga awoke Museveni to the reality that he had to try to get a wide margin in the 2011 elections to avoid a situation similar to Kenya.

He had seen his margin of victory consistently reduced in 2001 and 2006 elections and was not ready to allow a situation where it would have been too close to call in 2011.

Uganda’s president has of late been showing undue interest in Kenyan politics, raising questions over whether this is a new direction or a continuation of his long-term foreign policy.

The eagerness by a host of Kenyan politicians to consult Museveni in private has also raised eyebrows.

It creates the impression that the Ugandan leader has either become an indispensable political guru and source of advice, or a potential adversary who cannot be ignored if one is interested in the Kenyan presidency.

Prior to the February 18 elections, President Museveni was host to a number of Kenyan politicians with presidential ambitions — namely Prime Minister Odinga, Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka, former minister William Ruto and new entrant in the race Eugene Wamalwa. 

Museveni watchers have floated various reasons, ranging from President Museveni’s desire to establish an early rapport with whoever succeeds Kibaki in 2012, to economic interests in regard to the newly found oil in Uganda.

It is axiomatic that any Ugandan leader would be keen on following political developments in Kenya.

Uganda is Kenya’s biggest market, while Kenya is Uganda’s gateway to the world.

With the discovery of oil in the landlocked country, Uganda will be depended on Kenya to export its oil products, and Museveni would not wish to see a “hostile” regime in Kenya, thus the recent consorting with likely aspirants.

The leaked cables say that continued political unrest in Kenya and insecurity on the border deeply concerned Uganda, which was heavily dependent on Mombasa and Eldoret routes for goods and fuel.

One example of the effect of events in Kenya on Uganda was the uprooting of the railway line in Kibera by Orange Democratic Movement party supporters who were retaliating against President Museveni’s perceived support of Kibaki.

The action crippled the transportation of essential items to Uganda for several weeks.