About me.

Andrew M. Mwenda is the founding Managing Editor of The Independent, Uganda’s premier current affairs newsmagazine. One of Foreign Policy magazine 's top 100 Global Thinkers, TED Speaker and Foreign aid Critic



Wednesday, August 31, 2022

In admiration of Nobert Mao

How this South Asian country is transiting from a stable liberal democracy into a chaotic illiberal mobocracy

THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | The news from Sri Lanka is intriguing and confounding both as politics and as economics. Let us begin with its politics. Sri Lanka has, since independence from Britain in 1948, been consistently a liberal-democracy. Only India has that record in South Asia. Elections have always been held and are fairly free and fair. Control of government (the president, prime minister and parliament) has consistently changed hands from incumbent to opposition and back again. True some powerful individuals and families have dominated the politics of Sri Lanka at certain times, but that is the stuff of politics in many democracies.

Sunday, August 21, 2022

Raila: the making of a giant

How this South Asian country is transiting from a stable liberal democracy into a chaotic illiberal mobocracy

THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | The news from Sri Lanka is intriguing and confounding both as politics and as economics. Let us begin with its politics. Sri Lanka has, since independence from Britain in 1948, been consistently a liberal-democracy. Only India has that record in South Asia. Elections have always been held and are fairly free and fair. Control of government (the president, prime minister and parliament) has consistently changed hands from incumbent to opposition and back again. True some powerful individuals and families have dominated the politics of Sri Lanka at certain times, but that is the stuff of politics in many democracies.

Sunday, August 14, 2022

From Kerala with love


How this South Asian country is transiting from a stable liberal democracy into a chaotic illiberal mobocracy

THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | The news from Sri Lanka is intriguing and confounding both as politics and as economics. Let us begin with its politics. Sri Lanka has, since independence from Britain in 1948, been consistently a liberal-democracy. Only India has that record in South Asia. Elections have always been held and are fairly free and fair. Control of government (the president, prime minister and parliament) has consistently changed hands from incumbent to opposition and back again. True some powerful individuals and families have dominated the politics of Sri Lanka at certain times, but that is the stuff of politics in many democracies.

Monday, August 8, 2022

Daily Monitor 30th birthday

How this South Asian country is transiting from a stable liberal democracy into a chaotic illiberal mobocracy

THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | The news from Sri Lanka is intriguing and confounding both as politics and as economics. Let us begin with its politics. Sri Lanka has, since independence from Britain in 1948, been consistently a liberal-democracy. Only India has that record in South Asia. Elections have always been held and are fairly free and fair. Control of government (the president, prime minister and parliament) has consistently changed hands from incumbent to opposition and back again. True some powerful individuals and families have dominated the politics of Sri Lanka at certain times, but that is the stuff of politics in many democracies.

Saturday, July 23, 2022

Uganda’s fictitious disagreements

How this South Asian country is transiting from a stable liberal democracy into a chaotic illiberal mobocracy

THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | The news from Sri Lanka is intriguing and confounding both as politics and as economics. Let us begin with its politics. Sri Lanka has, since independence from Britain in 1948, been consistently a liberal-democracy. Only India has that record in South Asia. Elections have always been held and are fairly free and fair. Control of government (the president, prime minister and parliament) has consistently changed hands from incumbent to opposition and back again. True some powerful individuals and families have dominated the politics of Sri Lanka at certain times, but that is the stuff of politics in many democracies.

Sunday, July 17, 2022

Mob rule in Sri Lanka


How this South Asian country is transiting from a stable liberal democracy into a chaotic illiberal mobocracy

THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | The news from Sri Lanka is intriguing and confounding both as politics and as economics. Let us begin with its politics. Sri Lanka has, since independence from Britain in 1948, been consistently a liberal-democracy. Only India has that record in South Asia. Elections have always been held and are fairly free and fair. Control of government (the president, prime minister and parliament) has consistently changed hands from incumbent to opposition and back again. True some powerful individuals and families have dominated the politics of Sri Lanka at certain times, but that is the stuff of politics in many democracies.

Saturday, July 9, 2022

Uganda’s biggest handicap

How low levels of skill impact our nation’s ambitions in government, private sector and our homes

THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | A friend has lived in America for the last 15 years, having left the country in her early twenties. Before, during and after her graduate studies, she worked in private companies in America and international organisations around the world but mostly in Washington DC. Thanks to COVID, she has been able to come live and work from Kampala even though her office is in DC, via zoom. But it has also been a tough period of adjustment for her. Most of the people she has had to work with have frustrated her to exhaustion.