SINCE HIS REBEL army seized power in Uganda 19 years ago, Yoweri Museveni has emerged as one of Africa's heroes. Intelligent, witty and supremely confident in his abilities, he has led a government that cut poverty by 40 percent in the 1990s, achieving East Asian-style progress, even though his small and landlocked nation borders unstable Sudan, Congo and Rwanda and faces a murderous insurgency in its north. But now Mr. Museveni is risking his legacy. He is pushing for a constitutional change that would allow him to run for another five-year term as president.
Mr. Museveni believes that his continued rule would benefit his nation; after all, the past 19 have been so good. But Uganda succeeded in the past because Mr. Museveni strengthened the country's institutions, which in turn created the stable environment that permitted economic growth. In the 1990s, for example, Museveni-backed technocrats created a transparent budget process, a strong finance ministry and a procedure for getting support for the budget via consultations with parliamentarians and other stakeholders. As a result, the government acquired the tools to plan and track its spending, hyperinflation was banished, and Uganda was able to mobilize money for national objectives such as universal primary school enrollment. In other words, it was not just having a strong leader that mattered. It was having a strong leader who in turn fostered strong institutions.
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It's no longer clear that Mr. Museveni is a force for institutional improvement. The president listens less to the economic technocrats who drove policies in the 1990s and more to a kitchen cabinet of yes men. His promises to act decisively against corruption are losing credibility, because there is a growing list of past promises that the president has failed to implement. In reaction to past corruption scandals, Mr. Museveni sanctioned a series of inquiries. But those inquiries are complete, and nothing is being done. There have been no prosecutions, no firing of top people. The top people, naturally, are the president's friends.
If he goes forward with a constitutional change to permit another term in office, Mr. Museveni will further damage Uganda's institutional development. After ruling for a while as the leader of a non-party "movement," Mr. Museveni permitted the establishment of political parties and the adoption of a constitution that prescribes presidential term limits. Until now, therefore, the momentum was in the right direction, even if there were still gripes about the quality of Uganda's democracy. But by rewriting the constitution the moment that it's inconvenient, Mr. Museveni would shift his country in the opposite direction. That would risk his legacy in Uganda and send a damaging signal to the rest of Africa, much of which looks up to him.
