Yoweri Museveni, a man who has occupied the Ugandan presidency longer than most of his constituents have been biologically viable, has once again 'won' an election. It’s a shock to no one, yet we are all expected to perform the weary dance of geopolitical concern. With over seventy percent of the vote secured, Museveni has ensured his seventh term, proving that if you stay in power long enough, the concept of an 'election' becomes less of a democratic exercise and more of a recurring bureaucratic glitch. In the grand theatre of African politics, Museveni is the actor who refuses to leave the stage even after the lights have been dimmed, the audience has gone home, and the janitor is trying to mop the floor.

The methodology was, as always, a masterclass in unsubtle tyranny. Step one: pull the plug on the internet. Because nothing screams 'legitimate mandate' like plunging an entire nation into a digital dark age. In the absence of Twitter feeds and WhatsApp rumors, the state is free to manufacture whatever reality it deems most convenient. It’s a quaint, analog approach to a digital problem, reminding us that while the rest of the world is arguing over algorithms and shadow-banning, the old-school autocrats still understand the visceral power of simply cutting the wire. If a tree falls in a forest and no one can post a video of it because the government throttled the bandwidth, did the tree even fall? In Museveni’s Uganda, the tree is whatever he says it is, and it’s probably standing at attention, saluting his wisdom.

Then we have the challenger, Bobi Wine. A musician. A pop star. The darling of the Western media because if there’s one thing a bored journalist in London or New York loves, it’s a youthful rebel with a catchy hook and a red beret. Wine is crying foul, alleging 'fake results' and the kidnapping of his polling staff. One must admire the optimism of a man who thinks calling for 'peaceful protests' will move a regime that has spent thirty-five years polishing its bayonets. It is the classic struggle: the ballad versus the bullet. And as history teaches us with agonizing repetition, the bullet rarely cares about the tempo or the lyrics. Wine’s rhetoric is perfectly curated for a Netflix documentary, but it is utterly useless against the calcified machinery of a military state that views 'human rights' as a foreign language it has no intention of learning.

The allegations of kidnapped polling staff and election irregularities are, frankly, the most honest part of the whole affair. They represent the raw, unvarnished machinery of power. To be surprised by these tactics is to admit a level of naivety that should be medically classified as a cognitive impairment. Museveni isn't just a leader; he is the state. The borders of Uganda end where his patience does. His victory isn't a reflection of popular will; it's a testament to the endurance of a man who has outlasted every trend, every critic, and every half-hearted attempt at institutional reform. He has watched the rise and fall of the Berlin Wall, the birth of the internet, and the collapse of several global economies, all from the comfort of the same office.

Consider the number: 70%. It’s the Goldilocks of electoral fraud. 100% is too gauche, even for a man of Museveni’s vintage; it invites too much mockery from the 'international observers' who are currently sitting in air-conditioned hotels waiting for their per diems. 51% is too risky, suggesting a vulnerability that might actually encourage the rabble to try harder next time. But 70%? That’s the sweet spot. It says 'I am loved,' but it also says 'I can afford to lose a few points to make this look like a contest.' It is the arrogance of the entrenched, a number calculated in a boardroom rather than counted in a ballot box.

The international response will be the usual cocktail of 'grave concern' and 'calls for restraint.' Diplomatic boilerplate that carries the weight of a wet napkin in a hurricane. The West will fret about human rights while continuing to navigate the complex web of regional stability that Museveni provides. Everyone is complicit in this farce. The Right sees him as a bulwark against chaos; the Left sees a victim of colonial legacies, and both use these excuses to ignore the fact that a single man has turned a country into his personal fiefdom for nearly four decades.

In the end, the Ugandan people are left with the silence of a dead internet and the noise of a leader who refuses to leave the stage. The 'peaceful protests' Bobi Wine seeks will likely be met with the same surgical efficiency that ensured the 70% landslide. It’s a cycle as predictable as the seasons, only much more depressing. Museveni’s seventh term isn't a victory; it's a sentence. A long, drawn-out sentence in a book that should have been finished chapters ago, but the author has lost the plot and decided to just keep writing the same page over and over again until the ink runs dry and the world finally stops pretending to care.