UGANDA: Rob Crilly in Kampala reports on how an opposition leader's detention has fuelled concerns of a drift towards a dictatorial regime in Uganda
Opposition leaders in Uganda have made plans to use a statue of jailed presidential candidate Kizza Besigye at rallies if he is not released in time for campaigning ahead of February's elections.
It is the latest bizarre political twist in the east African country whose president, Yoweri Museveni, once the darling of western donors, has seen his international standing slip.
Along with Meles Zenawi in Ethiopia and Paul Kagame in Rwanda, Museveni was seen as a new type of African leader who would lead the continent out of misery.
Now their motives are viewed with growing suspicion as democratic reforms come unstuck.
In Uganda, the arrest of Dr Besigye sent shock waves through the international community. He spent Christmas languishing on remand facing charges of treason, terrorism and rape.
Wafula Oguttu, of the opposition Forum for Democratic Change, said there was no doubt that the charges and the timing of Dr Besigye's remand were entirely political.
"We are making preparations for a campaign in which our leader has to campaign from his cell," he said.
"We are hopeful that he will be released soon but in the meantime it means we have to make plans such as having a statue that could appear at campaign rallies." Dr Besigye returned to the country in October from South Africa, where he had lived since defeat in the 2001 election.
An opinion poll published in the government-owned New Vision newspaper shortly before Christmas suggested he had a 10 per cent lead over Museveni.
A western diplomatic source in Kampala said: "Museveni is scared. Although you have to say he is favourite to win another term, this is the first real test of his power and he is reverting to the sort of 'Big Man' leaders that we thought we had seen the last of in Africa."
Museveni came to power in 1986 at the head of a rebel army. He introduced a no-party system, arguing that party politics had exacerbated the tribal divisions responsible for bloodshed under the brutal regimes of Idi Amin and Milton Obote.
However, his success in tackling HIV - speaking out when other African leaders remained silent - and rapid economic growth meant he soon found favour with donors, eager to promote an African success story.
In 1998, President Bill Clinton hailed Museveni as an "African renaissance" leader alongside Kagame and Zenawi. The aid dollars began to flow and today donors provide more than half the entire Ugandan budget.
But his halo began to slip earlier this year when he offered MPs the equivalent of about €2,500 to vote in favour of abolishing the two-term presidential limit which was designed as a check on dictatorial leaders.
Now international donors are showing their anger at Dr Besigye's detention by trimming their aid.
Ireland and Norway have both reduced their support by €3 million, along with a host of other European countries. The UK followed suit before Christmas diverting £15 million (€22 million)from Uganda's coffers to humanitarian relief in the north of the country, where some 1.3 million people have been displaced by an ugly civil war.
Opposition politicians and commentators here say the West has taken too long to wake up to Museveni's excesses.
"Everybody is seeing Museveni's true colours now. He has been very, very tricky and clever in many ways, saying one thing to the international community and doing another at home," says Paul Fungaroho, an adviser to Dr Besigye and candidate in next year's parliamentary elections.
"People thought he was a good person at the start of his regime. But now, with the treatment of Dr Besigye, we can see that he is not a democratic leader." Similar criticism has been levelled at Meles in Ethiopia. His security forces have twice opened fire on demonstrators following disputed elections in May. Some 36 protesters were killed in June and at least 46 during clashes in November.
Thousands of the regime's political opponents, aid workers and human rights activists have been rounded up and 131 charged with crimes ranging from treason to genocide.
Meanwhile in Nigeria, the newspapers are abuzz with speculation that President Olesegun Obsasanjo is about to amend the constitution to allow him to stand for a third term.
Back in Uganda, Museveni's colleagues claim their leader remains dedicated to the democratic reforms he introduced.
John Nagenda, senior adviser to the president, said: "People talk about the issue of the third term. But everything that has happened has been done to the letter of the law.
"It was done by parliament, and parliament overwhelmingly It is not the first time that a constitution has been changed. It happens all over the world."
He added that the arrest of Dr Besigye had been bungled but that there were serious charges to answer and donors should think twice about using their cash as political leverage.
But for many living in Museveni's Uganda donors have a responsibility to keep nudging their leader towards free and fair elections.
Frederick Golooba Mutebi, a columnist with the Sunday Monitor newspaper, said: "Do Ugandans prefer to live in a donor-funded dictatorship or would people prefer to suffer a little for democracy in the future? I think the latter. Anyway, we all know that corruption here means it is our leaders who benefit most from the aid."