By the time you read these words, the longest-serving leader in East Africa will almost certainly have achieved a new lease of political life. President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda is running for re-election after 30 years in power – and there is no real doubt about the outcome of this contest. The opposition is bitterly divided and Uganda’s police stand ready to arrest and harass the President’s most troublesome critics. They include Kizza Besigye, who is running against Mr Museveni for the fourth time, and has been locked up so frequently that he has lost count. The Ugandan media is lively and, in many cases, admirably independent. Local journalists can and do criticise the President in unsparing terms, but what they can safely say and report remains encircled by invisib