Why NRM won local council elections amidst the `hated’ tax
on mobile money and social media
Last week, Uganda held elections for local councils.
The ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) of President Yoweri Museveni
fielded a candidate in almost every contested position. I obtained provisional
results from the Electoral Commission. They cover 53,340 out of 60,797
contested positions (i.e. 88%) in 122 districts. NRM won 69%, independents
(most of them allied to NRM) 22% and the combined opposition a miserable 9%.
There is a broad consensus among Ugandan elites that
Museveni has outgrown his usefulness and has now increasingly become a
liability. This consensus (in the absence of a scientific opinion poll, I am
going by social media and personal interactions) is not just among opposition
and independents. It is also widespread among supporters of the NRM, even its
MPs including cabinet ministers. It is increasingly rare to find an educated
Ugandan who believes Museveni represents the future of our country.
The elections were held a week after government introduced a
tax on mobile money and on social media, which has generated a lot of hostility
among the elite. They were also the first nation-wide elections after
parliament amended the constitution to remove age limits on the president so
that Museveni can run again. This amendment generated a lot of hostility from
the elite public as well.
How does Museveni (and his NRM) continue to win elections in
spite of these actions? This is the question Ugandan elites refuse to ask
because it would expose their delusions i.e. show that they are detached from
reality.
Social media is an echo chamber, where elites listen to
themselves and get an illusion that the whole country agrees with them. In
doing things that piss off elites, one would think Museveni had given his
enemies a rope with which to politically hang him. However, his opponents have
failed to take advantage of them. This should lead us to question whether these
decisions are blunders.
We cannot blame Museveni for seeking power till he dies. Any
self-interested individual would do exactly that. We can blame Ugandan society
generally: why doesn’t the public rise in revolt against Museveni for
corruption and mismanagement as claimed by his opponents? Are Ugandans this
cowardly? Or should we blame opposition leaders who have promised salvation but
delivered defeat after defeat?
I have friends who argue that society cannot be blamed for
these failures. It is leaders to blame. But who holds these leaders to account?
The ability of leaders to deliver depends on a vigilant population. If the
leadership in government has failed to manage the country well, the leadership of
opposition has also failed to remove an incompetent government from power. In
both cases, Museveni’s failures have not caused his fall and neither have the
failures of opposition leaders to remove him caused any change in opposition
leadership. This suggests that we are a society confortable with mediocrity.
Or may be not. I believe Museveni has been a successful
leader and Ugandans know it – deep inside them, perhaps intuitively – they feel
it and believe it. However, for fanciful reasons, it is not cool to admit this
fact and the more reason to pontificate and pretend to oppose Museveni. It
makes some elites hedge their bets against being accused of having been
compromised. Why? Because when Ugandans have previously felt their country is
in peril, they have organised in defiance of power and pursuit of their ideals.
Take 1981. When Museveni went to the bush, many Ugandans
followed him. Careers were abandoned, educations sacrificed, businesses left to
waste, lives put at risk, families left behind and properties abandoned.
Museveni offered no salaries to his fighters but hunger, sacrifice, and
potential death. The promise of victory was remote. Yet people joined, others
collaborated in this national liberation struggle until final victory was
achieved. That Ugandans are not willing to sacrifice for a second liberation
today is evidence that there is little evil to fight. The country is not as
baldy off as we claim in the media. We are not very happy. That is true. We are
merely suffering from tolerable inconveniences.
I think Museveni understands Uganda well and is
exceptionally adept at managing its diverse and conflicting social groups. He
has been unusually skillful and successful in placating the interests of our
nation’s influential but unruly and noisy ethnic and religious elites,
ascertaining the needs and expectations of the masses they represent, coopting
global powers to support him, managing regional politics, and insulating
himself a violent power-grab by his opponents.
Museveni has achieved this by doing things that, on the face
of it, we pretend to hate but which in reality are the instruments of
consolidating power in an ethnically heterogeneous poor country. He has
perfected the art of political corruption by creating a large volume of elective
and appointive political jobs – a huge parliament, 145 districts, 120
presidential advisors, 81 cabinet ministers, 200 Resident District
Commissioners etc. This is the reason few elites want to break ranks with him.
Even for his opponents, Museveni has created districts where they too can win
elections and eat.
So he has sold the country to multinational capital; the
better to reassure global powers that he is the man they must work with. He has
kept a tight and personal grip on the military and security apparatus, the more
effective way to avoid violent change of government. He has created many
popular programs for the masses like Universal Primary Education, basic
healthcare, Operation Wealth Creation; the sweet way to show ordinary people
that he cares about them.
He has protected ordinary people from taxes (by abolishing
graduated tax), defended boda bodas against the rule of law, protected poor
encroachers on public land and tolerated the corruption of the powerful. Even
for his most virulent critics, Museveni has allowed them political space to
insult and criticise him, the better to allow them let off steam and return to
sleep feeling that they have at least told him off. He has succeeded because
while he is passionate in his pursuit of power, he is flexible in his morals
and principles.
The mistake Museveni’s opponents have made is to imagine a
world that does not exist. To delude themselves into the belief that the
feelings they share against him in their social media echo chamber are the
feelings of the majority of the citizens. They have also lied to themselves
that they have a loyal base of supporters across the country. But as elections
consistently prove, all these are delusions.
*****
amwenda@independent.co.ug
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