Besigye’s messiah complex and the
triumph of power over values in The “Democratic” Alliance
For most of the last week of
September, leading opposition figure, Dr. Kizza Besigye, was a subject of
vitriolic attacks by many of his former admirers. All because he refused to
endorse former Prime Minister, Amama Mbabazi, as joint opposition flag bearer
for next year’s presidential election. Yet none of his critics cared to hear
Besigye’s reasons. Instead he was accused of being selfish and power-hungry.
Besigye’s objections are legitimate.
For example, the main issue of the opposition against President Yoweri
Museveni’s government is corruption. Mbabazi has been named in corruption
scandals like Temangalo, CHOGM and oil bribes. For the last seven years he has
been a subject of opposition vilification. I argued then (and still hold) that
there was no evidence against Mbabazi. The same people cuddling with him today
then accused me of having been bribed by Mbabazi. The former Prime Minister
must be smiling at how easily gullible they are.
If the opposition think corruption
is an evil in our society and believe (even if wrongly) that Mbabazi was
corrupt, that is an important ground to contest his suitability to be their
flag bearer. Otherwise they are looking at the election as only a contest over
power, not values or policies. Therefore Besigye has legitimate grounds when he
rises these objections, his personal motivations notwithstanding. To try block
any open and candid discussion of Mbabazi’s leadership of the opposition
struggle is not any different from NRM selecting a sole candidate.
In defending Besigye over his
objections to Mbabazi being an opposition flag bearer, I am not endorsing him
either. In fact, I am opposed to Besigye’s militant and extremist approach to
politics. I am also frustrated by his lack of an alternative policy agenda for
the country. He has reduced the aim of his struggle to protesting for the right
to protest. He has failed to articulate a vision of the Uganda he wants beyond
getting rid of Museveni. Mbabazi has not articulated an alternative vision
either. But his calm demeanor, his recognition of the gains of Museveni/NRM and
his argument for a peaceful transition sound more attractive to me than
Besigye’s angry and belligerent yet empty rhetoric.
Besigye ignited the anti-Museveni
fuse in 2000. But he has passed his sell-by date. He is therefore the wrong
opposition candidate for the presidency of Uganda. Ironically, he is an asset
as an opposition presidential candidate because he helps sustain the enthusiasm
of his most fanatical followers who would most likely stay home if Mbabazi is
the flag bearer. Tactically, therefore, the opposition actually needs him in
order to increase their voter turnout. If Mbabazi can appeal to NRM moderates
and attract independents to vote, there is a slight chance their combined vote
can force Museveni to a second round.
When he first challenged Museveni,
Besigye excited many people because he struck the right code and tone. He
emerged at a time when Uganda was deep into gross corruption and buccaneering
during the privatisation of public enterprises, and the liberalisation of the
economy public procurement. Yet Besigye’s tone was moderate, sober and
reflective. He did not promise to bring “salvation” but rather to “re-direct
the revolution” back to its original values.
The NRM response to Besigye was
brutal and unprecedented. Over the years as the state brutalised and humiliated
him, Besigye became a very bitter and angry man, and who could blame him? But
this bitterness also clouded Besigye’s judgment of Museveni and NRM. He lost
sight of positive things happening in the country. He began to see Uganda
through the prism of his personal predicament. To him, the NRM is a brutal and
corrupt military dictatorship that has destroyed Uganda. His sacrifices led him
to develop a messianic view of himself i.e. that the country needs Besigye to
deliver it to salvation.
Besigye’s inability to see beyond
his personal suffering has been his biggest handicap as a leader. There have
been a lot of improvements in Uganda since 2000 when he first challenged
Museveni. As an aspiring leader, he needed to appreciate the new developments,
to know where the country is so that he can plan to take it further. Instead,
he has been carried away by his personal suffering that he mistakes it to be
the experience of everyone. This has disarticulated Besigye from reality and
led him to to conflate Uganda’s experience with his own.
Seeing Uganda through his personal
suffering has led Besigye to see himself as the only solution for our country.
Anyone who disagrees with his militant approach to the political struggle does
not simply hold an alternative opinion. That person is a coward. And anyone who
disagrees with his extreme view that Museveni has destroyed Uganda and dares
point out that the economy is growing, greater democratic space is being won
and institutions are consolidating, Besigye accuses them of having been
compromised by “the regime”.
It is clear, therefore, that if
there is anything motivating Besigye to reject Mbabazi as the opposition flag
bearer, it is not a self-interested greed for power. Rather it his
self-righteousness, a messianic image of himself. It is what led him to
(perhaps inadvertently) undermine his successor in FDC, Mugisha Muntu. It is
the reason Besigye returned to lead the campaign against Museveni in spite of
having promised not to run for the presidency again.
Besigye is similar to many in the
political class in Uganda. They are not opposed to Museveni out of a principled
desire to improve the nation’s governance. Instead, their main quarrel with
Museveni is over power. That is why they embrace a militant, belligerent and
uncompromising politician like Besigye whose militarism is not very different
from that which Museveni exhibits. But Besigye is a militarist without
Museveni’s finesse. In power, he has a high potential to be worse.
If it was not for his daughters
conducting a Taliban-like campaign of vilification against anyone who makes the
slightest criticism of their father, Mbabazi would have been an attractive
candidate to people like me. His daughters’ intolerance portends worse to come
in our struggle against family rule. The noblest politician in Uganda today is
Muntu. Yet Ugandan voters seem disinterested in him in spite of his values.
This attraction to leaders with characteristic traits similar to those of
Museveni shows that they are looking for a change of government not governance.
That is the tragedy of our country.
amwenda@independent.co.ug
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