By Inés M. Pousadela
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Jan 26 2026 – When Ugandans went to the polls on 15 January, the outcome was never in doubt. As voting began, mobile internet services ground to a halt, ensuring minimal scrutiny as President Yoweri Museveni secured his seventh consecutive term. Far from offering democratic choice, the vote reinforced one of Africa’s longest-running presidencies, providing a veneer of democratic legitimacy while stifling competition.

Four decades in power

Museveni’s four-decade grip on power began with the Bush War, a guerrilla conflict that brought him to office in 1986. Single-party rule lasted for almost two decades, deemed necessary for national reconstruction. The 1995 constitution granted parliament and the judiciary autonomy and introduced a two-term presidential limit and age cap of 75, but maintained the ban on political parties.

With one-party rule increasingly called into question, Museveni restored multi-party politics in 2005. However, he simultaneously orchestrated a constitutional amendment to remove term limits. In 2017 he abolished the age restriction, allowing him to run for a sixth term in 2021.

Recent elections have been marked by state violence. Museveni’s 2021 campaign against opposition challenger Bobi Wine was defined by government brutality, with over a hundred people killed in protests following Wine’s arrest in November 2020. Another opposition leader, Kizza Besigye, has been arrested or detained more than a thousand times over the years.

Museveni promoted his son, Muhoozi Kainerugaba, to Chief of Defence Forces in 2024. Kainerugaba has openly boasted on social media about torturing political opponents, reflecting a regime that no longer bothers to conceal its brutality. His rise signals a potential hereditary handover.

Civic space shutdown

In the face of a credible opposition challenge, this year’s election required more than constitutional tinkering: it demanded the systematic restriction of civic space. The Trump administration’s dissolution of USAID in early 2025 helped Museveni here, because it was catastrophic for Ugandan civil society. Almost all US-funded Good Governance and Civil Society programmes were cancelled, hollowing out the civic education networks that once reached first-time and rural voters. State propaganda filled the vacuum.

A coordinated assault on dissent followed. Between June and October, climate and environmental activists were repeatedly denied bail, spending months in prison for peacefully protesting against the East African Crude Oil Pipeline. The regime’s reach extended beyond borders: in November 2024, Besigye was abducted in Nairobi and appeared days later at a military court in Kampala, charged with capital offences despite a Supreme Court ruling declaring military trials for civilians unconstitutional. Museveni simply legalised the practice in June 2025.

Intimidation intensified as the vote neared. Authorities arrested Sarah Bireete, executive director of the Center for Constitutional Governance, without a warrant, holding her for four days in violation of constitutional limits. In his New Year’s Eve address, Museveni explicitly instructed security forces to use more teargas against opposition supporters, whom he called criminals. In the days that followed, security forces used teargas, along with pepper spray and physical violence, to disperse opposition rallies. Hundreds of Wine supporters were abducted or detained.

The government dismantled the infrastructure needed for independent monitoring. Authorities suspended five prominent human rights organisations, and two days before voting, the Uganda Communications Commission implemented a nationwide internet shutdown, ostensibly to prevent disinformation. The blackout ensured election day irregularities would go undocumented.

Election irregularities and violence

Election day was plagued by technical failures, but Wine, again the major challenger, also claimed wholesale ballot stuffing and the abduction of polling agents. The Electoral Commission head admitted receiving private warnings from senior government figures against declaring some opposition candidates as winners.

International observers attempted diplomatic language, noting the environment was ‘relatively peaceful’ compared to 2021 while expressing serious concerns about harassment, intimidation and arrests. They recognised that the internet blackout hindered their ability to document irregularities.

Post-election violence claimed at least 12 lives. The deadliest incident occurred in Butambala district, where security forces killed between seven and 10 opposition supporters. Wine was placed under house arrest while the count was held in opaque conditions. Results were announced by region rather than polling station, limiting monitors’ ability to validate them. According to the official count, Museveni won with around 71 per cent, while Wine’s tally dropped to 25 per cent from 35 per cent in 2021. Turnout stood at just 52 per cent, meaning over 10 million eligible voters stayed home.

A generational breaking point

Ugandans’ median age is 17; 78 per cent of people are under 35. Most have known only one president. Wine, a 44-year-old singer turned politician whose music had long resonated with young Ugandans’ frustrations, campaigned on promises of change. But he’s now been defeated twice in a highly uneven race.

Young people have sought other ways to make their voices heard. In 2024, they took to the streets to protest against corruption, but they were met with security force violence and mass arrests.

Avenues for change appear blocked. Opposition parliamentary representation is insufficient for meaningful reform. Civil society groups face restrictive laws and lack international support. International partners are quiet because Uganda is strategically valuable: it provides troops for regional operations, shelters two million refugees, facilitates Chinese and French oil drilling and recently agreed to accept US deportees.

Given his advanced age, Museveni is unlikely to run again in 2031. But with authority increasingly concentrated on a tight inner circle of relatives, democratic transition may be less likely than an eventual transfer of power to his son. Uganda’s young majority faces a difficult choice: accept a status quo that offers no prospects or confront a security apparatus that has spent years perfecting its use of violence.

Inés M. Pousadela is CIVICUS Head of Research and Analysis, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report. She is also a Professor of Comparative Politics at Universidad ORT Uruguay.

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By Alon Ben-Meir
NEW YORK, Jan 26 2026 – At a press conference at the World Economic Forum in Davos last week, Trump unveiled his newly formed Board of Peace to end the Israel-Hamas war. During a press conference in the White House, he explained that he created the board because “The UN should have settled every one of the wars that I settled. I never went to them. I never even thought to go to them.”

He claimed that the Board of Peace will be dealing with ending the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. He invited many heads of state to join the Board and threatened to impose heavy tariffs on the countries of those who refused. Paradoxically, he also invited Russian President Putin to join the pack.

Even a cursory review of the Board’s structure—its executive make-up, role, and responsibilities—makes it glaringly clear that he placed himself at the forefront of everything, from operations to ultimate decision-making. He basically codified US dominance, as long as he ran it.

He granted himself the authority to veto any decision he did not like, to invite or remove any board member, to approve the agenda, to designate his successor, and even dissolve the board entirely. Furthermore, he reserved a central role for himself even after leaving the presidency.

Shortcomings of the Board and its Structure

In more than one way, the creation of this board dissolves the American-built post-war international system and builds a new one with himself at the center. And while Trump is striving to consolidate authoritarian power domestically, he now wants to project himself on the international stage as if he were an Emperor, presiding over a board composed largely of heads of state. Although board members can have their say, they are nevertheless structurally subordinated to him.

No Seat for the Primary Stakeholders

The Board of Peace and the parallel Gaza Executive Board are designed to sit above a technocratic Palestinian committee, with no Palestinian political representative given a seat at the top table, despite their being primary stakeholders. Hamas is required to disarm, without specifying how, and to withdraw from administrative governance.

The Palestinian Authority is relegated to an “apolitical” managerial role, which in effect reproduces the long-standing problem of trying to impose solutions over Palestinians instead of negotiating with them. This has repeatedly undermined past peace frameworks and offers no pathway towards sustainable regional or world peace.

Conflict of Interests

The board is chaired by Trump himself, with membership effectively bought via a $1 billion “permanent seat” fee, creating apparent conflicts between profit, prestige, and peacemaking. Russia, Israel, Gulf monarchies, and others who have direct stakes in arms sales, regional influence, and energy routes, are not neutral guarantors but interested parties likely to instrumentalize Gaza for their own strategic agendas.

Colonial-Style Trusteeship

The architecture explicitly envisions international figures and heads of state supervising Gaza’s reconstruction, security, and governance, effectively turning Gaza into a protectorate administered by external powers.

Human rights advocates and regional observers are already criticizing this as a colonial-style trusteeship that denies genuine sovereignty, which is already generating local resistance, delegitimizing the arrangement, and providing ideological fuel for militant spoilers.

Israeli and Regional Objections

Israel’s leadership has publicly objected to the composition and design of the Gaza bodies. It is enraged over the role of Turkey and Qatar, forcing Netanyahu to distance himself from aspects of the plan even while joining the board under pressure from Trump.

Nevertheless, the Israeli government views key members of the Board and mechanisms as hostile or at odds with its security principles. Israel will either hinder implementation or hollow it out in practice, turning the board into an arena for intra-allied conflict rather than conflict resolution.

Great Power Rivalry Inside the Board

Ironically, the board anticipates concurrent participation by rivals such as Russia, the EU, and US-aligned states, while at the same time, Moscow is resisting US-backed peace terms in Ukraine and leveraging Middle East crises to weaken Western influence. This arrangement invites the board to become another theater of great power competition, where Russia, Hungary, Belarus, and others can obstruct or dilute measures that do not serve their broader geopolitical interests.

This is not to speak, of course, about the widespread concerns and suspicions among European leaders about Putin’s adversarial relations at the table, which is a recipe for discord and prevents concrete action.

Unclear Legal Basis

Another big hole in Trump’s Board is its framing as an alternative to, and possible replacement for, the United Nations, without any legal foundation, universal membership, or binding authority under international law.

A self-selected club by Trump of mostly invited heads of state, tied to a particular US administration and anchored in significant financial contributions, lacks the procedural legitimacy to impose security arrangements, adjudicate disputes, or credibly guarantee Palestinian rights over the long term, to which Trump pays no heed at all.

Overambitious, Under-Specified Mandate

The board’s responsibilities have already expanded from supervising a Gaza ceasefire to a broad charter “promoting stability” and “resolving global conflict,” which is ostentatious and will never come to fruition, while indicating mission creep before it even begins.

Such a variable mandate, with multiple overlapping structures (Board of Peace, Gaza Executive Board, Founding Executive Board), is almost guaranteed to generate bureaucratic turf wars, paralysis, and incoherence—particularly once crises beyond Gaza compete for attention and resources.

To be sure, this is just another of Trump’s stunts, always pretending that he is the only one who can come up with out-of-the-box ideas. Like many of his initiatives, this so-called Board of Peace one falls into the same category—transactional and reversible.

It is a grandiose idea that cannot be sustained structurally, has no enforcement capability, and relies on a contradictory algorithm to allow it to fulfill its mission, which, in any case, remains open-ended and unrealistic.

Dr. Alon Ben-Meir is a retired professor of international relations, most recently at the Center for Global Affairs at NYU. He taught courses on international negotiation and Middle Eastern studies.

IPS UN Bureau

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By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 26 2026 – Judging by the mixed signals coming out of the White House, is the Board of Peace, a creation of President Donald Trump, eventually aimed at replacing the UN Security Council or the United Nations itself?

At a ceremony in Davos, Switzerland last week, Trump formally ratified the Charter of the Board — establishing it as “an official international organization”.

Trump, who will be serving as the Board’s Chairman, was joined by Founding Members* “representing countries around the world who have committed to building a secure and prosperous future for Gaza that delivers lasting peace, stability, and opportunity for its people.”

Norman Solomon, executive director, Institute for Public Accuracy and national director, RootsAction.org, told IPS President Trump’s “Board of Peace” is being designed as a kind of global alliance akin to the “coalition of the willing” that fraudulently tried to give legitimacy to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Trump, he said, is recruiting submissive governments to fall in line with his leadership for pushing the planet ever more in the direction of war for domination and plunder.

The price that members of the Orwellian-named “Board of Peace” will pay is much more than the sought amount upwards of $1 billion each. In a global gangster mode, Trump is making plans and putting up structures on imperial whim, he pointed out.

“At the same time, the methods to his madness are transparent as he seeks to create new mechanisms for U.S. domination of as much of the world as possible”.

Trump continues to push the boundaries of doublespeak that cloaks U.S. agendas for gaining economic and military leverage over other countries. The gist of the message on behalf of Uncle Sam is: “no more Mr. Nice Guy.”

Whereas Trump’s predecessors in the White House have often relied on mere doubletalk and lofty rhetoric to obscure their actual priorities and agendas, Trump has dispensed with euphemisms enough to make crystal clear that he believes the U.S. government is the light of the world that all others should fall in line behind, said Solomon, author of “War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine”

Asked about the Board of Peace, UN Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told reporters last week: “Let’s be clear. We are committed to doing whatever we can to ensure the full implementation of Security Council Resolution 2803, which as you will recall, welcomed the creation of the Board of Peace for Gaza”.

And as you know, he said, part of that resolution and the plan put forward by President Trump talked about the UN leading on humanitarian aid delivery.

“I think we have delivered a massive amount of humanitarian aid in Gaza, as much as we’ve been able to allow. And we’ve talked about the restrictions, but you know how much more we’ve been able to do since the ceasefire. As part of that, we’ve worked very well with the US authorities, and we will continue to do so.”

The UN, Dujarric reaffirmed, remains the only international organization with universal membership. “We’ve obviously saw the announcements made in Davos. The Secretary-General’s work continues with determination to implement the mandates given to us, all underpinned by international law, by the charter of the UN. I mean, our work continues.”

Asked about the similarities between the UN logo and the logo of the Board of Peace, he said he saw no copyright or trademark infringements.

In a statement released last week, Louis Charbonneau, UN Director at Human Rights Watch (HRW) said the United States played a leading role in establishing the UN. Now, US President Donald Trump is undermining and defunding large parts of it.

For the past year, he said, the US government has taken a sledgehammer to UN programs and agencies because the Trump administration believes the institution is “anti-American” and has a “hostile agenda.”

In UN negotiations, US officials have tried to purge words like “gender,” “climate,” and “diversity” from resolutions and statements. Diplomats have described to Human Rights Watch how US officials aggressively oppose human rights language they see as “woke” or politically correct, he said.

In an apparent attempt to sideline the UN Security Council, Trump has proposed a so-called Board of Peace that he personally would preside over. Trump has reportedly offered seats on his board to leaders of abusive governments, including Belarus, China, Hungary, Israel, Russia, and Vietnam, Charbonneau pointed out.

Originally the Board of Peace was meant to oversee the administration of Gaza following over two years of onslaught and destruction by Israeli forces, with which the United States was complicit. But the board’s charter doesn’t even mention Gaza, suggesting that Trump’s ambitions for this body have expanded enormously since first conceived.

The board’s proposed charter doesn’t mention human rights. And it makes clear that Trump, as board chairman, would have supreme authority “to adopt resolutions or other directives” as he sees fit.

A seat on the Board of Peace doesn’t come cheap: there’s a US$1 billion membership fee. Some, like French President Emmanuel Macron, already turned down an offer to join. Trump responded with a threat to significantly increase tariffs on French wine and champagne.

“The UN system has its problems, but it’s better than a global Politburo. Rather than paying billions to join Trump’s board, governments should focus on strengthening the UN’s ability to uphold human rights,” he declared.

Elaborating further, Solomon said the entire “Board of Peace” project is a dangerous farce that seeks to reconstitute a unipolar world that has already largely fallen apart during this century in economic terms.

The criminality of Trump’s approach, supported by the Republican majority in Congress, is backed up by the nation’s military might. More than ever, U.S. foreign policy has very little to offer the world other than gangsterism, extortion and blackmail – along with threats of massive violence that sometimes turn into military attacks that shred all semblance of international law.

Every U.S. president in this century, as before, has disregarded actual international law and substituted the preferences of its military-industrial complex for foreign policy. Trump has taken that policy to an unabashed extreme, shamelessly adhering to George Orwell’s dystopian credo of “War Is Peace” while pushing to wreck what’s left of a constructive international order.

Incidentally, when Indonesia’s mercurial leader Sukarno decided to quit the UN and form the Conference of the New Emerging Forces (CONEFO) as an alternative, it did not last very long, as Sukarno’s successor, Suharto “resumed” Indonesia’s participation in the UN.

No lasting harm was done to the UN. And all was forgotten and forgiven.

In a further clarification, UN Deputy Spokesperson Farhan Haq told reporters the Board of Peace has been authorized by the Security Council for its work on Gaza – strictly for that. “

“We’re not talking about the wider operations or any of the aspects that have been in the media for the last several days. What we’re talking about is the work on Gaza”.

“As you know, we have welcomed the ceasefire in Gaza and measures to support it, including the Board of Peace, and we’ll continue to work with all parties on the ground to make sure that the ceasefire is upheld. That is about Gaza.”

The larger aspects, he said, are things for anyone wanting to participate in this grouping to consider. Obviously, the UN has its own Charter, its own rules, and you can do your own compare and contrast between the respective organizations.

“As you’re well aware, he pointed out, the UN has coexisted alongside any number of organizations. There are regional organizations, subregional organizations, various defence alliances around the world. Some of them, we have relationship agreements with. Some of them, we don’t.

“We would have to see in terms of details what the Board of Peace becomes as it actually is established to know what sort of relationship we would have with it,” declared Haq.

The participants* at the signing event in Geneva last week included:

• Isa bin Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, minister of the prime minister’s court, Bahrain
• Nasser Bourita, minister of foreign affairs, Morocco
• Javier Milei, president, Argentina
• Nikol Pashinyan, prime minister, Armenia
• Ilham Aliyev, President, Azerbaijan
• Rosen Zhelyazkov, prime minister, Bulgaria
• Viktor Orban, prime minister, Hungary
• Prabowo Subianto, president, Indonesia
• Ayman Al Safadi, minister of foreign affairs, Jordan
• Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, president, Kazakhstan
• Vjosa Osmani-Sadriu, president, Kosovo
• Mian Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif, prime minister, Pakistan
• Santiago Peña, president, Paraguay
• Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, president, Qatar
• Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, minister of foreign affairs, Saudi Arabia
• Hakan Fidan, minister of foreign affairs, Turkey
• Khaldoon Khalifa Al Mubarak, special envoy to the U.S. for the UAE
• Shavkat Mirziyoyev, president, Uzbekistan
• Gombojavyn Zandanshatar, prime minister, Mongolia

A long list of countries, including Canada, France, Germany, Italy and other European nations, were absent from the signing, and some have specifically rejected the invitation.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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