July 10, 2026
Gloire Sebuyange
Introduction
Elections are usually understood as mechanisms through which citizens choose political leaders and hold them accountable. Political campaigns in democratic systems present a competitive race in which parties and candidates seek to persuade voters through policies, messaging, and mass mobilization. However, in many authoritarian regimes, elections still happen regularly, just like in democratic regimes, but without genuine political competition. Elections in these contexts function as instruments of regime survival instead of serving as pathways to alternation in power. With a comparative study of both Uganda and Cameroon, this research asks, how do incumbents in authoritarian regimes use electoral campaigns to maintain power rather than risk it? This question challenges the assumption that campaigns are inherently competitive or democratic. Instead, it seeks to demonstrate how campaigns in authoritarian regimes can be systematically transformed into tools of control of the regime, discipline of opposition actors, and structure of political participation under constraint.
This study focuses on Uganda under President Yoweri Museveni and Cameroon under President Paul Biya. Therefore, this paper argues that authoritarian incumbents maintain power during elections by strategically shaping campaigns along two shared dimensions. First, they capture electoral institutions and legal frameworks, ensuring that campaign rules and dispute resolution mechanisms favor incumbents. Second, they restrict and securitize the campaign environment, allowing incumbents to mobilize freely while constraining opposition visibility and activity. To develop this paper, this paper encompasses an introduction, literature review and theoretical framework, case selection and research design, analysis, and a conclusion.
Literature and Theoretical Framework
As Schedler (2006) argues, elections in nondemocratic regimes are neither meaningless nor democratic. Instead, they are carefully managed processes that allow incumbents to claim legitimacy, divide opposition forces, and monitor popular support (Gandhi & Lust-Okar, 2009). Levitsky and Way (2010) further demonstrate that competitive authoritarian regimes retain multiparty elections while systematically violating democratic norms to preserve incumbency.
While this scholarship explains why authoritarian regimes hold elections to maintain power, it pays less attention to how electoral campaigning itself functions as a mechanism of authoritarian control. For most of these regimes, campaigns are not just part of the democratic process; they are also a façade to hold on to the democratic principles of “regular elections,” but these elections are conducted with the goal of maintaining power with repression. I address this gap in this paper by placing campaigning at the center of authoritarian survival strategies.
This study emphasizes two key concepts. First, institutional capture, which refers to the incumbent’s control over electoral commissions, courts, and legal rules that govern campaigns. In this context, electoral institutions often lack independence, making incumbents determine who can compete, how campaigns unfold, and how outcomes are decided (Schedler, 2006). Second, campaign securitization describes the use of security forces, administrative regulations, and coercion to limit opposition mobilization while allowing incumbents unrestricted access to voters. Rather than eliminating opposition entirely, regimes manage campaign behavior to ensure predictability (Levitsky & Way, 2010).
Despite limited prospects for democratic change in autocratic regimes, citizens still participate in elections. Svolik notes that authoritarian elections force voters into a strategic dilemma: opposing the regime may express democratic preferences but carries significant risks, while supporting the incumbent may offer material or security benefits. Rather than treating authoritarian voting as purely coerced or meaningless, he emphasizes that voters make calculated choices shaped by fear, uncertainty, coordination problems, and expectations about others’ behavior. Elections thus reveal not only regime strength but also the constraints under which citizens attempt to act collectively against autocracy (Svolik, 2023).
In addition, Higashijima (2022) conceptualizes elections as strategic institutions rather than democratic rituals. He argues that dictators face an electoral dilemma between manipulating elections to secure overwhelming victories and allowing cleaner elections that enhance legitimacy, provide information about popular support, and fragment opposition forces. Therefore, authoritarian incumbents also face a strategic choice in how they manipulate elections. They do not rely exclusively on overt acts such as fraud or repression, but instead “rig the rules” by redesigning electoral institutions (e.g., districting, electoral formulas, legal thresholds) to bias outcomes in their favor. Institutional manipulation is often less visible, less costly, and more durable than outright rule breaking. However, when institutional manipulation is insufficient to guarantee victory, especially under strong opposition pressure, incumbents may resort to obvious violations such as fraud, intimidation, or disenfranchisement (Noh, 2018).
Presidents in electoral authoritarian regimes typically rely on one of three strategies to extend their rule: amending constitutions to remove term limits, selecting loyal successors, or combining succession with institutional reforms that constrain successor autonomy (Bunce & Wolchik, 2010). While elections in such regimes usually preserve authoritarian rule, they occasionally enable opposition victories. Importantly, dictators are not defeated simply because regimes are vulnerable; rather, oppositions must actively create victory through coordination, planning, and mass mobilization.
Paul Biya of Cameroon and Yoweri Museveni of Uganda are both long-serving incumbents who maintain power through elections without abandoning multiparty competition. Their regimes demonstrate how elections can be manipulated not only through fraud or repression but also through the strategic management of campaigning itself. Gandhi and Lust-Okar (2009) argue that elections under authoritarianism are not democratic anomalies but central institutions of authoritarian rule. Such elections help regimes endure by co-opting elites, dividing opposition forces, gathering information about regime support, and conferring domestic and international legitimacy. Electoral competition is typically shaped by patronage, clientelism, and rule manipulation, producing outcomes that favor incumbents. While elections can sometimes contribute to democratization, particularly through opposition coordination or external pressure, these effects are rare and contingent rather than automatic.
Autocrats’ reliance on elections is often motivated by their desire to reduce the risk of violent removal from office. While popular perceptions emphasize fraud, violence, and repression, authoritarian incumbents possess a wider repertoire of tools to stage-manage elections, many of which operate within formal institutional frameworks (Gandhi & Lust-Okar, 2009).
The causal mechanism proposed in this paper is straightforward; When incumbents control electoral institutions and restrict the campaign environment, campaigns cease to threaten regime stability and instead reinforce it. Observable implications suggest that electoral commissions and courts consistently rule in favor of incumbents in authoritarian regimes. This also includes an unequal enforcement of campaign laws. In certain circumstances, the incumbent may get some privileges to run a campaign in certain places where the opposition may not have the same favors. In Uganda, for example, it was argued that President Museveni’s campaign pictures were found in corridors of airports, while other candidates did not have the right to do the same. In addition, heavy and sometimes aggressive security presence at opposition rallies is always visible but not at incumbent events. This makes it possible to experience opposition arrests, abductions, bans, or disruption during campaign periods. For instance, after President Yoweri Museveni was declared the winner of the January 2026 elections in Uganda, his rival Robert Kyagulanyi, known as Bobi Wine, rejected the results and posted on X that “I know that these criminals are looking for me everywhere, and I am trying my best to keep safe” (The Africa Report, 2026).
Case Selection and Research Design
This study purposively employs a comparative analysis of authoritarian campaigning using the case studies of Uganda and Cameroon. While Uganda and Cameroon are not representative of all authoritarian regimes, these two countries share several defining political characteristics yet differ in historical and regional contexts. Both Uganda and Cameroon hold regular multiparty presidential elections, yet power remains in the hands of long-serving incumbents Yoweri Museveni, who has ruled Uganda since 1986, and Paul Biya, who has ruled Cameroon since 1982 and is now the world’s oldest president at 93. In each case, formal democratic institutions such as electoral commissions, courts, and legislatures coexist with authoritarian practices that systematically advantage the ruling regime (Lawal, 2026).
In addition, elections in both Uganda and Camerron raise significant domestic and international controversies and scrutiny. In the international spaces, these elections are perceived as incentives for incumbents to rely on legal institutions and campaign-based strategies to control rather than explicitly suspending elections or abandoning multiparty competition. Regionally and internally, the local populations also hold the same option, while others seem to be in favor of these incumbents. When people in the context of both countries mobilize massively to vote for an incumbent who has four decades in power, the question one would ask here would be to know: are they genuinely in favor of the incumbent’s leadership and policies, or do they gain incentives from the incumbent? It would be hard to answer this question in a political environment where people’s voting behaviors cannot be predicted.
In authoritarian regimes, elections are not just events but rather calculated step-by-step events that incumbents use to their advantage. In such regime, potential opposing actors face serious challenges such as arrests or get strategically eliminated from the political scene, some incumbents make sure the opposition rivals are not competitive enough, leaving people with no option but to just vote for the incumbent.
Analysis
Electoral campaigning in Uganda and Cameroon reveals the way authoritarian incumbents convert elections from moments of political risk into instruments of control (Lawal, 2026). Both regimes strategically shape the institutional and security environments in which campaigns unfold. Two shared mechanisms are especially central to their electoral systems: the capture of electoral institutions and legal frameworks and the restriction and securitization of campaign space. These strategies reduce uncertainty, fragment opposition forces, and ensure that electoral competition poses minimal threat to regime survival.
Institutional Control and Legal Engineering
In both Uganda and Cameroon, incumbents’ control over electoral institutions plays a decisive role in structuring campaigns to their advantage. Institutions formally responsible for administering elections and adjudicating disputes operate not as neutral arbiters but as extensions of executive authority. This institutional capture allows incumbents to shape legal and procedural rules governing campaigns, thereby constraining opposition participation well before voting takes place. Lawal (2026) emphasizes that at least three of these leaders, Museveni of Uganda, Paul Biya of Cameroon, and Sassou Nguesso of the Republic of Congo, have developed special strategies that enable them to consolidate power, according to political experts who have studied them. These strategies include manipulated elections, divide-and-conquer strategies, and strong international alliances.
The election commission in Uganda has been criticized for not being independent from the executive branch. At eighty-one, President Museveni is the third-longest-serving consecutive president in the world. Analysts note that he has complete authority over Uganda and that activists are concerned about a dynastic succession plan in the future after his son, General Muhoozi Kainerugaba, was appointed army chief back in 2024. His control over Uganda, analysts say, is absolute, and the appointment of his son, General Muhoozi Kainerugaba, as army chief back in 2024 has prompted worries among activists of a dynastic succession plan in the future (Lawal, 2026). Opposition candidates often encounter administrative obstacles, including burdensome registration requirements, restrictions on rallies, and selective enforcement of campaign regulations.
More importantly, judicial remedies are limited, as courts rarely rule against the incumbent when electoral disputes arise, and constitutional manipulation further reinforces this institutional advantage. The National Assembly, which is dominated by Museveni’s National Resistance Movement, is generally regarded as powerless and obedient to the presidency. A constitutional age limit on the presidency was lifted by MPs in 2017, allowing Museveni, who is currently 81 years old, to run for office for as long as he wants. Museveni was not elected until 1996 after initially seizing power by force. Since 2001, the military, which is currently headed by Museveni’s son, has been accused of manipulating and interfering with elections (MUHUMUZA, 2023; CSIS, 2025).
Similarly, the electoral management body, Elections Cameroon (ELECAM), along with the Constitutional Council, is widely perceived as serving the interests of the ruling elite. Opposition challenges to electoral conduct are usually dismissed, even in the presence of credible allegations of campaign irregularities and fraud (Kinkoh & Dideberg, 2025). Beyond post-election adjudication, legal mechanisms are also employed to shape the field of competition in advance. The exclusion of prominent opposition figures through technical or legal measures fragments opposition coalitions and weakens the capacity for coordinated campaign messaging. In this way, the regime manages competition not by eliminating opposition entirely, but by ensuring that it remains divided, constrained, and ineffective.
Cameroon’s parliament has approved a constitutional amendment restoring the position of vice president. This is a reform widely criticized by opposition actors as further establishing President Paul Biya’s hold on power. The amendment, passed in a joint session of the National Assembly and Senate and boycotted by the main opposition party, grants the president sweeping authority over the vice presidency, including the power to appoint and dismiss the officeholder at will. Under the new arrangement, the vice president may only exercise powers delegated by the president and will serve as interim president for the remainder of the presidential term in the event of a vacancy. While members of the ruling Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement have framed the reform as a means of ensuring institutional stability, critics argue that it undermines democratic accountability by replacing electoral legitimacy with executive appointment (CHIMTOM, 2026).
In both Uganda and Cameroon, institutional capture turns elections into strictly regulated contests with predetermined results far ahead of election day. Formally, opposition participation is still allowed, maintaining the impression of plurality, but only in situations where incumbent power is not seriously threatened.
Restriction and Securitization of the Campaign Environment
The systematic securitization of campaign space complements institutional control. Incumbents in both Cameroon and Uganda use administrative restrictions and security personnel to prevent opposition mobilization while permitting their own campaign operations to continue unobstructed. As a result, campaigning becomes both a political activity and a security concern, especially when opposition players engage in it.
Police and military personnel are visibly present during opposition demonstrations during election seasons in Uganda. Maintaining public order or national security is a common justification for monitoring, dispersals, and arrests. The relative freedom granted to incumbent campaign activities stands in complete contrast to these practices. This disparity is amplified by media coverage, which marginalizes opposing viewpoints while disproportionately promoting the incumbent narrative of continuity and stability (The Africa Report, 2026; MUHUMUZA, 2023). The result is a campaign atmosphere that discourages widespread mobilization since opposition participation involves personal and political dangers. In Uganda, journalists and opposition leaders have faced escalating harassment, including arbitrary arrests and detentions on politically motivated charges (CSIS, 2025; Uganda Law Society, 2026). Since November 2024, Museveni ally and four-time presidential contender Kizza Besigye has been detained on charges of conspiring to overthrow Museveni. He is accused of treason, which carries a death sentence in the nation (Lawal, 2026).
African election observers reported that they found no evidence of ballot-stuffing during the polls, but they strongly condemned widespread reports of intimidation, arrests, and abductions targeting opposition figures and civil society actors. According to former Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan, who was leading observer missions from the African Union and regional bodies including COMESA and IGAD, these practices “instilled fear and eroded public trust in the electoral process.” Jonathan further noted that the government-imposed internet shutdown severely disrupted effective election observation and heightened public suspicion surrounding the vote, even though election day itself was described as largely peaceful (Lawal, 2026).
Furthermore, Cameroon reflects comparable dynamics. Restraints, prohibitions on rallies, and violent suppression of post-election protests are common ways to limit opposition campaigning. The most forceful deployment of security forces occurs in opposition strongholds, indicating the consequences of engaging in politics outside of avenues approved by the administration. The idea that political participation is only acceptable when in line with the ruling party is reinforced by the ongoing campaign operations of the incumbent (Sharma, 2025). Voters are given a clear message: opposition activism is only acceptable within strictly regulated parameters.
President Paul Biya, at 92 years old, was declared the winner of the most recent elections held on October 12, 2025, with 53.66 percent of the vote by Cameroon’s Constitutional Council, giving him the eighth mandate and making him the oldest and one of the longest-serving presidents in history. Supporters of the opposition candidate The Front for the National Salvation of Camerron party’s Issa Tchiroma Baraky contested the results, claiming that Paul Biya and his allies in power had rigged the polls. To disperse the people that gathered in support of Tchiroma, who had proclaimed himself the true winner and urged Biya to concede, police used water cannons and tear gas, costing the lives of at least 48 people, as Lawal (2026) reported. “Our victory is clear,” he said in a Facebook video statement. Paul Biya is urged to “accept the truth of the ballot box” or “plunge the country into turmoil” (Sharma, 2025).
According to Akua (2025), the elections in Cameroon triggered a lot of tension both internally and externally. The European Union condemned the use of firearms to kill civilians during the brutal suppression of protests on October 26 and 27. The UN Secretary-General shared these worries, calling on political figures and those who support them to use moderation, oppose violence, and abstain from hate speech and inflammatory rhetoric. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, among other international human rights organizations, also criticized excessive use of force against demonstrators and demanded independent investigations into the deaths that followed.
Furthermore, both regimes use selective rather than total repression. To keep up the appearance of competitive campaigning and to appease both domestic and foreign observers, incumbents allow a certain amount of opposition activity. However, this targeted repression is enough to stifle momentum, disperse opposition initiatives, and discourage mass coordination. Both regimes neutralize the democratic potential of elections while maintaining electoral rituals by permitting competition without uncertainty.
Conclusion
This paper has demonstrated that in Uganda and Cameroon, electoral campaigning operates less as a forum for democratic competition than as a strategic mechanism of authoritarian power preservation. The analysis highlights how incumbents transform moments of potential political vulnerability into predictable and controlled processes, focusing on campaigning rather than elections as isolated events. Through the combined mechanisms of institutional capture and the securitization of campaign space, electoral competition in these regimes is permitted only to the extent that it does not threaten regime survival. The comparative analysis shows that these mechanisms function in similar ways across distinct political and historical contexts. In Uganda and Cameroon, electoral commissions, courts, and legal frameworks systematically favor the incumbent, while security forces and administrative regulations restrict opposition mobilization. It is important to note that these regimes do not eliminate opposition outright; they instead manage political participation in ways that fragment challengers, discourage mass coordination, and reduce uncertainty, making campaigns exercises in regulation and surveillance rather than persuasion or genuine contestation.
Importantly, this study contributes to the literature on electoral authoritarianism by situating campaigning as a critical site of authoritarian control. While existing scholarship emphasizes elections as institutions of regime maintenance, this paper shows that the campaign period itself is central to shaping electoral outcomes long before ballots are cast. Incumbents, therefore, effectively predetermine the boundaries of political competition by structuring who can campaign, where, and under what conditions. While elections in electoral authoritarian regimes may occasionally yield unexpected outcomes, the evidence from Uganda and Cameroon suggests that incumbent resilience rests less on episodic fraud than on the systematic management of campaigning. Although this study does not seek to predict the electoral futures of Uganda and Cameroon, it is crucial for opposition leaders, campaign strategists, and political analysts to critically account for the long‑standing techniques incumbents have employed to maintain power. Understanding these strategies is necessary for shaping more effective opposition responses, including the formation of unified opposition coalitions, strengthened civil society and youth mobilization, and the enhancement of electoral literacy among citizens.
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