Wednesday, June 1, 2011

FACTBOX-Key political risks to watch in Uganda

(Reuters) - Anti-government protests over soaring prices that plunged the start of President Yoweri Museveni's fourth term into crisis appeared to fizzle but opposition activists were planning more to regain lost momentum.

Rights groups said at least nine people had been killed by the security forces since the outset of the demonstrations that began on April 11.

The government's heavy-handed response that landed opposition leader Kizza Besigye in a Kenyan hospital drew international condemnation.

Fierce riots erupted across the capital, Kampala, on April 29, a day after television pictures showed Besigye, who had become the face of the protests, being doused with pepper spray and dragged away by police. [ID:nLDE73S0PH]

Museveni has blamed drought and global oil prices for the leap in consumer prices, which pushed the rate of inflation UGCPIY=ECI to 16.0 percent in May.

The veteran leader's latest crackdown on dissent will firm his critics' conviction that Museveni's leadership is displaying an increasingly autocratic streak.

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