Like many African leaders, Yoweri Museveni preached democracy even as he was seizing power through the barrel of a gun. In his stirring inaugural speech of January 1986, three days after his National Resistance Movement stormed Kampala, Uganda’s new leader spoke eloquently about the cycle of coup and counter-coup despoiling Africa’s political landscape. “We have had one group getting rid of another one, only for it to turn out to be worse than the group it displaced,” he said. “The first point in our programme is the restoration of democracy.”

Thirty years after those rousing words, Mr Museveni is still in charge. Barring a violent upheaval of the sort that propelled him to power all those years ago, he will remain so for at least another five years following deeply flawed elections that culminate at the ballot box today. After a campaign marred by intimidation, Mr Museveni will be duly returned for a fifth term. He has already amended the constitution once to scrap two-term limits. If he can do so again, this time to end an age limit of 75, then Mr Museveni, already 71, may be able to carry on as leader of Uganda well into his eighties.

That is quite a feat for someone who once said that the problem with Africa was leaders “who want to overstay in power”. Even so, Mr Museveni is not the overstayer-in-chief. That honour goes to Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea and José Eduardo dos Santos of Angola, who have both lasted 36 years. Robert Mugabe, who turns 92 this weekend, is not far behind. He will celebrate 36 years as Zimbabwe’s leader in April and has pledged to run again in elections due in 2018. Gambia’s President Yahya Jammeh, who secured power the old-fashioned way in a coup, once told the BBC he was ready to serve for a billion years if Allah willed it. He didn’t mention the will of the people.