Ugandans are on edge as the election clock ticks. Yoweri Museveni, in power for 30 years now, is facing what many consider to be his toughest challenge yet. There are fears that he would attempt to rig the election or use force against the opposition to deny them victory. The country is polarized.

Uganda’s oil and gas are at the heart of campaigns for presidential elections taking place this month. But the resources are shrouded in mystery, as no one, except the Museveni regime, knows the details of the contracts the government has signed with multi-national companies. Ugandans need to keep an eye on these resources and demand answers on how they will be used to better their lives.

In the ruling party manifesto, peace and stability are presented as President Museveni’s legacy. However, it is ironic that a re-election campaign built on these claims is now widely associated with so much state-sponsored violence and intimidation.

There is clear evidence that the crime preventer program is linked to the ruling political party and that the crime preventers’ actions are frequently both unlawful and partisan, aimed at intimidating or reducing support for the political opposition.

Conversations with Ugandans reveal that people at the grassroots see ethnic federalism as one possible way of restoring and guaranteeing both socio-political accountability and economic security in a system that relies too much on increasingly narrow ethnic and political clientelistic networks.