Subnational Turnover, Accountability Politics, and Electoral Authoritarian Survival: Evidence from Museveni’s Uganda

Abstract

Most non-democratic regimes engineer elections such that regime change is effectively impossible via the ballot. However, many of these elections see high turnover of politicians at the subnational level, often through competitive processes that occur within ruling parties. This is the case for President Yoweri Museveni’s dominant National Resistance Movement (NRM) in Uganda, the ranks of which have been decimated by intra-party competition at each election throughout its three decades in power. This competition includes high levels of voter participation in mass primaries and general elections and is particularly acute in the rural southern areas where Museveni’s simultaneous presidential candidacy draws most support. Based on qualitative data from the 2016 elections, this article investigates the relationship between this local, intra-party competition and Museveni’s survival, building a theory that local competition in electoral authoritarian regimes can provide an outlet for accountability politics by redirecting widespread voter frustrations away from a regime and towards expendable local politicians.