HISTORY OF MILITARY INTERVENTION IN UGANDAN POLITICS

The belief, a generation ago, at the time of political independence, was that a new era of prosperity and stability would prevail in Africa. The prerequisite for this state of affairs was premised on the western democracy that the European colonial powers had bequeathed to the new states of Africa. However, it did not take long before military coups set in, proving the failure of western democracy in Africa. The soldiers had started regarding themselves as the better alternatives to civilian rule - whether based on multi-party, or one-party politics. The paper, therefore, aims at analyzing the root-causes of military intervention in African politics. This is done both at the continental level and from a case-study point of view, at the Ugandan level. The conclusion is that the case of Uganda demonstrates that military intervention occurs when there are internal contradictions between political parties as well as within the ruling party. These then led to an alliance with the army. This alliance has both internal and external components.