How NRM’s
level of organization has made it impossible for the Opposition to mobilize the
masses against Museveni
Sections of
the opposition in Uganda have been arguing that it is through violence that
President Yoweri Museveni has been able to sustain his political power. While
this may have been the case for the first decade, it has become increasingly
counterproductive for the President to use violence as an instrument of rule.
It seems to
me that the combatants in the political debates in Uganda, especially those
from the opposition, are not particularly interested in an analysis of the
facts. They believe that Museveni has been an unmitigated failure in the
management of the economy and the delivery of public goods and services.
From this
bias, they seek to forge swords for their political armory. Their hope is that
the wider Ugandan public shares their doomsday view of the Museveni regime. So
they assume that most Ugandans share their ambition for regime change. When
election results turn out different from such assumptions, they begin looking
for reasons to explain the mismatch.
It is this
context that drives most (certainly not all) political analysis about Uganda
today. Claims of violence are easy to sell. They also allow the opposition to
avoid the hard task of internal self criticism that is vital to help them
identify their core weaknesses and Museveni’s core strength.
This lazy
attitude on the part of the opposition and its intellectual defenders has been
the biggest threat to their chances of ever capturing power. By hiding behind
such convincing excuses, the opposition has been unable to master an effective
response to Museveni’s myriad strategies.
To capture
power in a society like Uganda, a political party would need to first win over
the social institutions through which Ugandans organize and express themselves.
These include the established churches, traditional collectivities, labour
unions, farmers’ cooperatives, traders and professional associations, youth
organizations and the business community. UPC was rooted in the Protestant
Church, the Mosque, trade unions and the youths and cooperative movements.
To defeat UPC
politically, Museveni used DP to ally with the Catholic Church, Mengo, Toro
royalists and sections of the Muslim community. This alliance was vital for him
to secure a military victory against the Obote11 government. That FDC and Dr.
Kizza Besigye have failed to win over any of these social institutions has been
a major weakness in their bid for power.
Today,
Museveni has used bribery, persuasion and maybe overt and covert intimidation
to keep the Catholic and Protestant churches firmly in his corner. He has
courted and won over the Born-Again churches and large sections of the Muslim
community.
He has
ingratiated himself with traditional collectivities through restoration of
monarchs and traditional leaders on whom he bestows state patronage. He has the
business community firmly by his side. He has absolute loyalty of the labour
unions and has organized cooperatives around NRM. This has effectively denied
the opposition channels through which it can mobilize the masses.
African
leaders who have lost power or come close to doing so suffered such fate after
loss of such constituencies. Kenneth Kaunda in Zambia lost the trade unions,
which were powerful in that country as did Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe. The
churches and middle class professionals led resistance to Daniel Arap Moi in Kenya.
Both Abdu Diof and Abdullai Wade in Senegal lost the support of the Marabouts
(Islamic leaders) in that country.
The only
group that captured power without the support of (and with active opposition
from) such traditional centers of power in Africa was the RPF in Rwanda and the
consequence was slaughter on a genocidal scale.
Museveni’s
strength outside of incumbency (although it is reinforced by it) is the level
of organization of the NRM. Ideally, NRM is a weak, incoherent, corrupt and
disorganized political party. But such ideal is only meaningful if NRM’s
strength is juxtaposed against that of its competitors.
Compared to
FDC, UPC and DP, NRM is a formidable organizational behemoth. Right now, NRM
has a committee of 30 individuals in each of Uganda’s 25,000 villages. If we
assumed that each member of this committee comes from a family of five voters
of whom three are willing to vote for NRM with him; that gives Museveni 2.3m
votes even before he begins campaigning.
Through
control of the State, the NRM has also taken control of many cooperatives in
the country. Uganda has over 7,000 registered cooperatives of which about 5,000
are active. Many of these have been sponsored by Museveni personally with State
funds; so he is the person with direct loyalty from them and equally contact
with their members.
With Church
and traditional leaders receiving money and cars from him, the middle classes
of Uganda can laugh at his open corruption and abuse of State power, but the
ordinary masses whose vote carries the day, see him as doing the right thing.
Museveni has
a highly cultivated intuition for the Ugandan psych. He understands popular
expectations of him as a leader in rural areas. He scorns elite concerns (many
of them pretentious) about him using public funds by personalistically handing
over money to priests and prelates, chiefs and kings, queens and princes etc.
It seems he
feels that anyone of those who criticize him would act exactly like him if
given his position. So he has become honest. He has since abandoned his
idealism of building a State with institutions that are separate from how he
personally exercises power.
But most
critically, is extensive State patronage of 71 ministers, 120 presidential
advisors and assistants, 850 State House staff, 7,000 President’s Office staff,
50 ambassadors, 177 commissions and semi autonomous government bodies with
directorships, 200 RDCs and deputies etc. This way, Museveni has crowded the
opposition out of the market for politicians with social capital (reputation) and
political skills (for organization and mobilization).
Consequently,
in every election the opposition can hardly find candidates for parliamentary
and local government positions, thus making it almost impossible to mobilize
the masses against Museveni. These factors, not violence, are the real basis of
Museveni’s power, and the earlier the opposition appreciates them, the better.
amwenda@independent.co.ug
No comments:
Post a Comment