THE President’s chief of protocol cautioned that the great man’s arrival in Matete, a town of dirt roads and banana trees, would be like something coming down from Heaven, and the elements played along.

After hours of baking sun, dark clouds suddenly gathered over the thousands of men, women and children who had arrived on open-topped trucks and now stood packed on the football field.

As President Museveni’s white, armour-plated Mercedes 4x4 glided through the crowd towards the podium, the first heavy drops of rain fell. Few people sought shelter, perhaps mindful of the guards in purple jumpsuits who stood in front of the crowd, truncheons at the ready.

“Don’t fear the rain. It is a blessing,” said the President, wearing a pinstriped suit, black socks and sandals and his trademark beige safari hat, before moving on to the day’s business: extending his 20-year grip on power.

“The opposition says I must go,” he bellowed, smiling and raising a pink thumb — the party symbol — to roars of approval. “Where do they want me to go?"

Into retirement, for a start.

Five years ago Mr Museveni, long regarded as one of the most-progressive leaders in Africa, pledged to step down when his second term ended this month. Instead, the 61-year-old former guerrilla with the boyish face pushed through a constitutional change last year to remove term limits.

Now he is the favourite to win the presidential election on Thursday. The President’s critics say that he has morphed into one of the “Big Man” African leaders whom he used to chastise. It is a charge that gains credence when you hear the President talk about his election rivals.

“Why should an important person leave and let those who are irrelevant take over?” he asked at the rally in Matete, central Uganda, on Wednesday.

For irrelevant, read Kizza Besigye, his former personal physician and main challenger among the four other presidential candidates. Mr Besigye, a popular and fiery politician, who took 28 per cent of the votes in a highly disputed election in 2001, returned to Uganda from exile in October.

He found that while the democratic space had opened — these are the first multiparty elections in more than 20 years — so had the jail doors to welcome him home.

Charged with treason, terrorism and rape — trumped-up allegations, his supporters say — he spent six weeks behind bars before being granted bail.

His campaign schedule has had to work around regular appearances before military and civilian courts.

Explore World News

• World Agenda

• Iraq News

• US & Americas News

• Europe News

• Middle East News

• Afghanistan News

• Asia News

• Africa News

• Ireland News

Times Recommends

• UN may halt 400-year-old 'freedom of the seas'
• Where the Rosetta belongs can’t be set in stone
• Gas deal on hold, but Ukraine may pay in the end