tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-63212728809131282382024-03-16T11:52:37.289-07:00ANDREW MWENDA'S BLOGIndependent UGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00597910260410335839noreply@blogger.comBlogger758125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6321272880913128238.post-42878145530812545382023-10-07T08:26:00.008-07:002023-10-10T08:53:45.677-07:00Rwanda’s biggest brand problem<p></p><p style="background: white; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><strong><span face=""Helvetica",sans-serif" style="border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #333333; font-size: 10pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"></span></strong></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5jOXJHPdF6jdsXrpL7yzOPtEv4gOk656jdFN-Ia9d4y9mztdTIQgdddy2nfUewbKeKk2tJfDsuKPs1D2LkBzxWCBWUbJGFPYgcBB_qPSUFhB-hfvUMUqxe7MBZ2fC9ujJMfcF8ZF5Zeyi6k1m1wWYL9ia8StKwlfCW5GzAY2EbAGxiAbL4SU7X1zVK_Y/s640/Paul-kagame-inaugural-1.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="419" data-original-width="640" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5jOXJHPdF6jdsXrpL7yzOPtEv4gOk656jdFN-Ia9d4y9mztdTIQgdddy2nfUewbKeKk2tJfDsuKPs1D2LkBzxWCBWUbJGFPYgcBB_qPSUFhB-hfvUMUqxe7MBZ2fC9ujJMfcF8ZF5Zeyi6k1m1wWYL9ia8StKwlfCW5GzAY2EbAGxiAbL4SU7X1zVK_Y/s320/Paul-kagame-inaugural-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #202021; font-family: Roboto; font-size: 12px; font-style: italic; font-weight: 700; text-align: left;">FILE PHOTO: President Paul Kagame delivers his inaugural speech August 18, 2017. PHOTO FLickr.com/paulkagame</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b>How and why Kagame’s
enemies have been successful at branding him a tyrant<o:p></o:p></b></p><p class="MsoNormal">THE LAST WORD | Andrew M. Mwenda | I asked a young friend to
visit Rwanda and assess the state of the country. He returned last week
completely mesmerised at how a poor country can have such excellent
infrastructure, a well-organised and clean environment beyond his imagination.
However, and like so many people who visit that country, he came with that
hackneyed claim that Rwandans are not free. I asked him how he established
this. He said he could feel it in the air. I asked him if he had asked any
Rwandan how he/she felt. He said he had not because he didn’t have to. “They
seemed too afraid for me to even ask”. It was clear to me that this is
something he has always heard in some circles in Uganda and the international
press.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><o:p></o:p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Many Ugandans and foreigners tell me that Rwandans are
afraid to criticise their government. I always tell them I talk to many
Rwandans who criticise the government. I have attended Rwanda’s leadership
retreat and been depressed by the savage attacks its officials make against
their government. Ironically, the leading critic of Rwanda’s government is
President Paul Kagame. In one popular video clip, there is a disagreement
between me and him during a leadership retreat on this matter. Kagame had spent
an hour criticising his government. I intervened to argue the contrary. Even
traditional and social media in Rwanda are filled with criticisms.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">In his meet-the-people tours around the country, ordinary
citizens petition their president with many problems they are facing at the
hands of local or central government officials. Every end of year Rwanda has
umushyikirano; an assessment of its performance which is televised. During
these sessions, ordinary people call in to raise various criticisms of
government. I recently attended an RPF party event where many speakers, in the
presence of Kagame, stood one after another to criticise the party and
government, pointing out weaknesses and areas that need improvement.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">There is one area where Rwandans are reluctant to speak freely
– identity. But this has little to do with government. The genocide turned the
Hutu-Tutsi identity into such a toxic subject that many Rwandans find extreme
discomfort in this part of their history. If they express reservations about
this subject, it is not because of fear of the state but due to the
psychological trauma it ignites in them as citizens with a bad history.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">To illustrate: I once got a problem with access to the
internet at Serena Hotel, Kigali. Management sent me a young man to fix it. I
asked him if he was Hutu or Tutsi. He was almost paralysed into silence. I was
intrigued by his paralysis and pressed further with my question. He began to
cry. When I asked the third time, he began to sob loudly. I got extremely
terrified. What if someone in the corridor had the cries and came into my room
to find a young man with me sobbing so loudly? What would they think? I was
getting late for a lunch date with Kagame and the First Lady at State House,
which is near Serena Hotel in Kiyovu. So, I rushed out of the room without
having my internet fixed and left the boy there. When I narrated this story to
Kagame, he was extremely cross with me.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">“Mwenda,” he shouted visibly disturbed. Kagame calls me
Mwenda when he is displeased with me. Otherwise, he calls me Andrew or Old Man.
“What is this obsession you have with trying to know whether someone is Hutu or
Tutsi?” Then he calmed down and became very introspective, speaking with a very
soft yet painful expression. “For all you know, that boy’s father may have been
Hutu, his mother, Tutsi. May he his father killed his mother during the
genocide. Perhaps he has grown with his Tutsi side of the family. He may be
having a conflict of identity: is he Hutu or Tutsi? You asking him such a
question is opening deep and painful wounds.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">The first lady interjected saying that even if I have been
going to Rwanda so often over many years, I have failed to penetrate the deep
layers of the country’s social brain. If a regular visitor like me with so many
contacts can fail to read such a simple issue, what would someone expect of
foreigners who visit for a few days once in five years? Or even once in a year.
I was almost getting upset with my young friend who was claiming, based on his
intuition, that Rwandans seemed scared of speaking freely when I remembered
this experience. I realised I need to learn to tolerate those who misread and
misjudge Rwandans. Rather than get angry and dismiss them, I need to learn to
explain Rwanda to them.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Freedom is a very context-specific notion. For instance,
American law criminalises polygamy. Do American men who desire to marry several
wives feel their freedom is constrained? I suspect they accept the law as a
social norm. Do white Americans feel their country is a dictatorship because they
cannot use the word nigger in reference to black people? I believe they accept
this social norm as the right thing to do. So, when laws and social norms make
us avoid expressing certain opinions or indulging in particular behavior, they
do not necessarily mean we feel unfree. In this sense, the notion of freedom
has to be understood within its cultural context.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">I told my friend that freedom is not an objective notion
with a universal standard as Freedom House presents it to the world. It is a
subjective feeling. Therefore, we need to ask Rwandans about whether they feel
free or not. I did a google search and found an opinion poll by Gallup, the
highly regarded American polling firm. In it, 90% of Rwandans said they feel
free. In fact, Rwanda was 21 in the world, ahead of USA, UK, Italy, Belgium
etc. In Africa, it was second only to Mauritius. Now some will claim that
Rwandans lie to pollsters because of fear. But if this were the case, then
countries with dictatorships would rank highest in freedom compared to free
nations because of this falsification of feelings. They don’t.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Kagame has been exceptionally successful in many things,
including in branding Rwanda as a modernist state. However, his enemies have
also been equally successful in branding him a tyrant. It is the one sticking
issue he can never wriggle himself out of.</p><p class="MsoNormal">****** </p><p style="background: white; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
</p><p class="MsoNormal">amwenda@independent.co.ug<o:p></o:p></p><p></p>Independent UGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00597910260410335839noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6321272880913128238.post-28776678810620784892023-09-30T08:33:00.016-07:002023-10-10T08:56:26.681-07:00The fall and fall of the FDC<p><strong><span face=""Helvetica",sans-serif" style="border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #333333; font-size: 10pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"></span></strong></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><strong><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPn_6hC3neRziAu3xt2HvdVjlwhu9QCeVoxuKYEIO-k6VDL6I2j8jh1erC2XESO9HGcR6tN2gEyvhl0KM1TbAPYPaoGGPoUoOC8dhqDeLjZnYPWxldvDyVuXC4D06kNr-i8f75zykVSk8oTKMJ1TPB_uFyEQCT9rL5nNaAuhEwDn7rMmjDZGk7rovpBAQ/s640/FDC-.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="305" data-original-width="640" height="153" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPn_6hC3neRziAu3xt2HvdVjlwhu9QCeVoxuKYEIO-k6VDL6I2j8jh1erC2XESO9HGcR6tN2gEyvhl0KM1TbAPYPaoGGPoUoOC8dhqDeLjZnYPWxldvDyVuXC4D06kNr-i8f75zykVSk8oTKMJ1TPB_uFyEQCT9rL5nNaAuhEwDn7rMmjDZGk7rovpBAQ/s320/FDC-.jpg" width="320" /></a></strong></div><strong><br /></strong><p style="background: white; line-height: 15pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b>Lessons for NUP from the continuing crisis in Uganda’s
previously largest opposition political party<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>THE LAST WORD | Andrew M. Mwenda | </b>The Forum
for Democratic Change (FDC) continues to tear itself apart. This is perhaps the
final phase of the party’s existence. When time comes to write its postmortem,
what would have been the causes of its demise? For we must remember that FDC
was born of high ideals: to promote democratic values, to fight for honest
government, to nurture tolerance of differing views, etc. The party has failed
on each one of these aspirations.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Many commentators would like to attribute the crisis in the
party to the scheming and cunning of President Yoweri Museveni. Although this
has been an important factor, I think it has been only of secondary
significance. Besides, it should have been expected that he would try to divide
and wreck the party. Who wouldn’t? Therefore, to get to the root of the FDC’s
crisis, we have to take a very brief tour of the history of its founding.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><a name="more"></a>FDC was founded in a moment of great
frustration but also a moment of great hope. Beginning in 1997, there had been
growing concern inside the top leadership of the NRM that the revolution was
going astray. They felt Museveni was increasingly becoming beholden to close
family members, that high level corruption was eroding public confidence in
government, that dictatorial tendencies were creeping into the party and
government, that a peaceful transition of power was becoming a mirage. I
occupied a side-seat at these developments as a reporter at Monitor newspaper.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The founders of FDC came from across the country’s geographical
and ideological spectrum. The largest section were liberals from the NRM. They
were into two sections: Reform Agenda and the Parliamentary Advocacy Forum
(PAFO). Reform Agenda was largely composed of NRM’s youthful militants. PAFO
was composed to NRM’s mature politicians who had been in high positions,
especially cabinet, in the Museveni government. These NRM reformers enjoyed the
sympathy of many leaders and supporters of NRM who remained loyal to Museveni.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">NRM reformers joined hands with many other politicians from
the old political parties, to wit the UPC, DP and CP in parliament. The first
step was the creation of PAFO, which included Reform Agenda activists. The
third step was to reach out to all other progressive politicians like Karuhanga
Chapa from new and smaller parties plus other previously non-affiliated
politicians and intellectuals. Thus, FDC was born a large and diverse omnibus
organisation.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It did not take long for this large and ideologically
diverse leadership of the party to find itself in conflict with its base. Young
people were angry and impatient. They wanted radical change and wanted it
immediately. The old guard, especially from NRM, were cautious and reflective.
They understood that revolutionary change was neither possible nor desirable.
So, there was a conflict between the top leadership and the base. Besigye was
the first politician to smell the anger of the militants and placed himself as
their leader. But this anger was like a poisoned chalice. It manifested itself
in the form of self-righteous indignation.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Hence, anyone who did not exhibit exaggerated hatred of
Museveni and the status-quo was accused of being a mole. Increasingly the
militants became the dominant face and voice of the party. And increasingly,
the more mature leaders of the FDC slowly left the party, initially in trickles
and later in floods. People like Amanya Mushega and Eriya Kategaya found
themselves unable to remain inside the party. Some went back to NRM, confirming
the accusations that they were moles. Others went totally silent. A few like
Augustine Ruzindana and Mugisha Muntu tried to stay inside. But the forces of
intolerance enforcing ideological purity were on the march.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Activists like Betty Kamya were hounded out of the party
because she insisted on remaining in dialogue with Museveni. She formed her own
party and even ran for president. Muntu was the last to fall, quitting to form
his own. FDC continued to shrink, its share of parliamentary seats falling from
a high of 18% in 2006 to a low of 5% in 2021. Besigye refused to leave the
leadership of the party. Although his two terms as president ended, he created
a private office at Katonga Road. Using his immense influence on the party’s
base, he frustrated his successor, Muntu. Then he handpicked what he considered
would be a puppet, Patrick Amuriat, and anointed him president. He forgot that
there was an even better-skilled puppeteer.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Through these internal struggles, FDC moved from a large and
diverse organisation into a radical extremist cult intolerant of dissent. It
lost 90% of its leaders – those people with experience, skills and a national
profile to provide it leadership. Meanwhile, Museveni was exploiting these
internal weaknesses to extend his appeal. Slowly, he was able to woe West Nile,
Lango, Acholi and Teso to his corner. By the time Bobi Wine struck and wrestled
Buganda and Busoga from him, Museveni was comfortable in boxing the young
upstart to look like an ethnic Baganda candidate. FDC may not recover from
these fights but other parties, especially NUP, can draw lessons from its
demise for their own future.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The first lesson is that Uganda is a very diverse country –
ethnically, religiously, ideologically, etc. No single group commands a
majority. It is a polity of many diverse minorities. To build a large political
base requires accommodating divergent interests, opinions and traits. NRM
provides this perfect example. Even though he has the power and resources of
the state, Museveni has not insisted on ideological purity. NRM leaders can
express any views and yet will not be hounded out of the party. The best
example is the party’s own spokesman, Ofwono Opondo, who sometimes and often,
sounds like an opposition politician on television. To this extent, NRM remains
the most liberal party in large party because of this tolerance of diverse
views.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The second lesson is that aspirations are projections about
a future one wants, not a present one can get immediately. The journey towards
that destination is traversed at a creep, not a gallop. To demand and expect
that every democratic ideal in the constitution should be realised here and now
is to demand the impossible. It has taken the USA 250 years of continuous
struggle and the country continues to fall short on many of the ideals in its
constitution. Rather than denounce Museveni as a demonic tyrant, find ways to
work with him for the future that will be realised over generations.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">*****</p><p></p>Independent UGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00597910260410335839noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6321272880913128238.post-64813880009512516312023-09-23T08:40:00.001-07:002023-10-10T08:42:13.786-07:00 The real threat to liberalism<p><b><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuR3OWCOInMQvoQ1G1c5shQoUuqjLGrAnT8vhjl4kczNyKcwKnJ2ilEfYN_Vm6TLUJcP0GcRhHgNrF9_kReLbaXblTU-Gy_90Qh_VJNejCL5tF2Cl-STmGaggAR9VFZkkMtldj77qd-L1shbz7VPLOkzSPflNL8gFUlXnuSp15BnJDw1oPOzbL4VraFvw/s600/putin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="394" data-original-width="600" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuR3OWCOInMQvoQ1G1c5shQoUuqjLGrAnT8vhjl4kczNyKcwKnJ2ilEfYN_Vm6TLUJcP0GcRhHgNrF9_kReLbaXblTU-Gy_90Qh_VJNejCL5tF2Cl-STmGaggAR9VFZkkMtldj77qd-L1shbz7VPLOkzSPflNL8gFUlXnuSp15BnJDw1oPOzbL4VraFvw/s320/putin.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #202021; font-family: Roboto; font-size: 12px; font-style: italic; font-weight: 700; text-align: left;">President Vladmir Putin</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br />Why democracy crusaders should worry less about Putin and
more about its home front, the West</b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">THE LAST WORD | Andrew M. Mwenda | Since
Russia invaded Ukraine last year, the liberal democracies of the West have been
on a “moral” crusade against President Vladmir Putin. According to them, Putin
is a tyrant, a dictator, a despot, a murderer and corrupt. Meanwhile, Ukraine
is a “liberal democracy” whose success threatens to set a bad example for
Putin. Never mind that before this invasion, many Western media, including
Time, did documentaries on Ukraine showing that the government in Kiev is
controlled by neo-Nazis. Adolf Hitler must be smiling in his grave (if there is
one) at this irony.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The Russian invasion of Ukraine is constantly prefaced with
the word “unprovoked”. Never mind that practically every U.S. leader, including
the senile President Joe Biden when he was a senator, the current CIA director,
William Burns, and former secretaries of defense, Robert McNamara, Robert Bates
and William Perry, and former secretaries of state, Henry Kissinger, George
Kenan etc. all predicted that NATO expansion would provoke a hostile Russian
reaction. The leaders of Germany and France had predicted similarly.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The U.S. leaders, including Biden and his secretary of
defense, Lloyd Austin, have publicly called for the assassination of Putin and
the overthrow of his government, apparently in order to promote liberal
democracy there. Never mind that wherever and whenever the West has attempted
to spread liberal democracy to other countries – Iraq, Yemen, Syria, Somalia,
Libya and Afghanistan etc. – they have sown seeds of state collapse and anarchy
leading to spread of terrorism and mass murder.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Not to be outdone in this “moral” crusade, the International
Criminal Court indicted Putin for war crimes. Never mind the same court has
done nothing when U.S. leaders and their allies have launched an unprovoked
invasion of some country using the same excuses like the “responsibility to
protect” and to spread democracy. Indeed, Putin was reading from their script
when he claimed to have invaded Ukraine to rid it of neo-Nazis. But whenever
and wherever America and her puppets have bombed a country, massacred civilians
and committed genocide, the ICC has done nothing. Clearly, ICC is an instrument
in the West’s arsenal to dominate the world.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Yet all these blatant abuses of power and naked hypocrisy
are not the reason behind this article. It is the near-total blockade of alternative
views, the suffocation of open debate of these issues and the complicity of
Western media that concerns me.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As a western trained African, I have a commitment to
liberalism, which I think is a great and inspiring idea. Every issue of public
concern needs to be openly debated in the hope that such debate can illuminate
the complexity and multidimensional nature of any subject. This is not done for
its own sake but as a means of trying to find the truths.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Yet on Ukraine, every view that does not present Kiev as a
victim of “unprovoked” aggression and Putin as the devil incarnate, has been
purged from media. Anyone who critiques the current narrative is often accused
of being on Putin’s payroll.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Alphabet, the parent company of Google, even removed RT, the
Russian sponsored television network, from YouTube. Recently, a retired U.S.
Colonel, Scott Ritter, who has been consistent in arguing that the Ukrainians
are being beaten by the Russians, had his YouTube account closed. There has
been a blackout of all news and information critical of Kiev or positive on
Putin on all Western media.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The West, which claims to be at war with Putin in defense of
liberal ideals, is suppressing them at home. As I have argued repeatedly in
this column, attempts to export liberal ideals abroad (or claims thereof) often
tend to undermine them at home. For instance, sanctions against Russia have led
to a catastrophic decline in living standards in Western countries, the first
time since the end of the Second World War. This has led to the growth of
extreme right wing political parties in Western Europe, which are hostile to
liberal ideals. I will return to this in the conclusion of this column. For
now, in Russia itself, Western sanctions are likely to strengthen Putin’s alleged
authoritarian hand since he can now suppress dissent in the name of national
defense. Talk of shooting oneself in the foot!<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The Western democracy mujahedeen forgets that the cause of
liberty is never secure. The greatest Western thinkers on this subject –
Frederick Von Hayek, George Orwell, Karl Popper, to mention only but a few –
had always warned about these threats to liberty. The liberal priesthood
ignores the historic context that has allowed democracy to survive and thrive
in the West. Consequently, they have elevated it from a political form specific
to a particular time and place into a universal norm applicable everywhere and
anytime regardless of circumstances. Yet all political systems are products of
their time and circumstances and liberal democracy is no exception.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But as developments in the West are showing us now, the
future of liberal democracy is neither certain nor guaranteed. The assumption
that democracy in the West is permanent rests on the belief that the
fundamental conditions that have sustained it will continue forever. Yet with
current trends this assumption is false.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Democracy in the West has thrived since 1945 in large part
because of the sustained economic growth that benefited large sections of
Western society. Since 1980, growth has benefited the top 10%, leading to
widening inequality. As Western living standards for most people continue to
decline, and the sanctions on Russia are a big part of this, public faith in
democracy is eroding as well. This is what happened in most of Europe during
the inter-war years (1919-1939).<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Many studies have shown the retreat of democracy in recent
times. These trends were set in motion by the 2008 financial crisis, worsened
during the COVID pandemic and have been accentuated by the Ukraine war. This
year, the economic growth forecast for the EU is 0.8% and for the USA is 2.2%
expected to fall to 0.8% in 2024. The Germany economy, the largest and most
dynamic in Europe, is forecast to shrink by 0.4%, France will grow by 0.8%,
Italy by 0.9% and UK by 0.6%. This economic trend is a much bigger threat to
liberal democracy in the West than Putin. Western leaders need to appreciate
Russian fears and find a way to engage Putin in order to put their economies
back on track. I suggest that before throwing stones at the Russian president,
the West looks in the mirror.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">*****</p>Independent UGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00597910260410335839noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6321272880913128238.post-42090018426731623942023-09-16T08:44:00.000-07:002023-10-10T08:45:29.445-07:00Bobi Wine’s misleading resurgence<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq1NkSSsOq5Z4DZWgMl5JIzNg-F-uUEuz3hRqRbWZerWEk75UjMjIRPKGsmFwvaohmCGWbz6eZL_Q5bPlIMXYtx96q0jFm1DwO31ABI58-qY7gFaM6CGsC8auI28TVCj2kK20ZRbqqaGPMXRVUt2P7akfV03KBdOuMzDmxwKBzBcthzCO2n1U6mVbPziY/s640/BOBI-WINE-CROWDS.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="640" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq1NkSSsOq5Z4DZWgMl5JIzNg-F-uUEuz3hRqRbWZerWEk75UjMjIRPKGsmFwvaohmCGWbz6eZL_Q5bPlIMXYtx96q0jFm1DwO31ABI58-qY7gFaM6CGsC8auI28TVCj2kK20ZRbqqaGPMXRVUt2P7akfV03KBdOuMzDmxwKBzBcthzCO2n1U6mVbPziY/s320/BOBI-WINE-CROWDS.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Bobi wine while in Luweero. Photo via @HEBobiwine</span></td></tr></tbody></table>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>Why the big crowds at his rallies are misleading indicators
of actual voter behavior at the ballot box</b><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>THE LAST WORD | Andrew M. Mwenda | </b>As
expected, police have “suspended” the countrywide mobilistion tour by Robert
Kyagulanyi aka Bobi Wine. After pulling large crowds across the country, I am
sure government got scared. I am sure that even this scare is partly misguided
but also partly a result of NRM’s lack of a strategic response. Therefore, from
thence henceforth, Bobi Wine’s movements will be closely monitored and
restricted. Police will look for every flimsy excuse to stop him in order to
contain the growth in his popularity. Yet in trying to stop him, police will
give him extra publicity for his cause and help him grow. This is a classic
Catch 22 situation.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Since he captured power, President Yoweri Museveni has made
it a point to restrict his opponents from organising against him. He has been
successful at this because he enjoys effective personal control over the
security services. The army, the police and intelligence organisations are
always used as an arm of the president to bolster his politics. Anyone who have
lived in Uganda over the last few decades knows this. What intrigues me,
therefore, is that the opposition have employed the same losing methods to
respond to this challenge for the last 38 years. Are mass matches through towns
the only effective vehicle to mobilise?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The other major problem of the opposition is messaging and
audience targeting. Bobi Wine has a very good intuition of the grievances that
drive many Ugandans, especially male youths in urban areas, against Museveni.
So, when he speaks, he touches their souls. I also think his charisma has made
him the most potent threat to Museveni in an election among his tribemates, the
Baganda. But this has come at the very high price of alienating the rest of
Uganda, except Busoga, from him. The results of the last presidential elections
of 2021 speak clearly and loudly about this.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In the north and north eastern regions where Kizza Besigye
used to score between 40 and 70%, Bobi Wine got only 20% in Acholi, 23% in West
Nile, 25% in Lango and 7.8% in Teso. In Western Uganda where Besigye used to
get 30% of the vote, Bobi Wine got 8% in Ankole,7% in Kigezi, 22% in
Tooro/Rwenzori and Bunyoro 21%. Yet in Buganda where he won, his margins of
victory were not enough to compensate for the loses in other regions. He got
55% in greater Masaka, 65% in Mpigi, 65% in Mukono, 47% in greater Mubende, 53%
in greater Luwero, 76% in Kampala and Wakiso. In Busoga, he won 48% against
Museveni’s 43%.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Therefore, it is clear that the Bobi Wine wave was
restricted to Buganda (his home base) and Busoga (Buganda’s poodle). Even
within Buganda itself, it was restricted to predominantly Baganda districts –
Mpigi 72%, Butambala 73%, Gomba 54%, Masaka 66%, Masaka City 77%, Bukomansimbi
69%, Kalungu 69%, Lwengo 56%, Kyotera 65%, Kalangala 70%, Mukono 72%, Kayunga
64%, Buikwe 65%, Buvuma 65%, Mityana 65%, Kasanda 54%, Luwero 70%, Kampala 73%
and Wakiso 76%. Museveni won in the districts of Mubende, Kiboga, Kyankwanzi,
Nakaseke, Nakasongola, Lyantonde, Sembabule and Rakai.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Bobi Wine’s loses in other regions of Uganda and some
districts within Buganda itself shows that youths, outside urban areas,
actually did not vote for him. Yet this is not a big problem.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The lesson from the above results is that for Bobi Wine to
grow, he needs to reach out to Ugandans outside his narrow circle of ethnic
Baganda and to some extent Basoga. This means he needs to cultivate support
among youths in rural areas, women and non-Baganda and non-Basoga. He needs to
convince people outside his traditional ethnic and demographic support base
that he is presidential.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">To do this, Bobi Wine needs to realise that male youths in
urban areas do no constitute the majority of male youths, leave alone the wider
community of Ugandans. Yet from his rhetoric he keeps reciting the grievances
of this group without adding anything except ethnic grievances of Baganda.
Technically it is hard to accuse him of ethnic politics. But within the
cultural context he is speaking, we all know what he is talking about. These
appeals to ethnic sentiment will most likely hurt Bobi Wine as his opponents
will use them to paint him as a Muganda chauvinist. This is the image he needs
to avoid.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Secondly, one of the biggest challenges Bobi Wine faces with
his demographic base on urbanised male youths is their disloyalty. In the last
election, male youths in urban areas had the lowest voter registration share of
any demographic group. Uganda’s median age is 16.7 years. Youth in Uganda
constitute about 70% of the electorate. Yet in all major towns, they are only
35-40% of registered voters. This means only about half of youths register to
vote.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Bobi Wine and his supporters keep complaining that their
votes are stolen without addressing this problem. It is possible that large
crowds that follow him at his rallies reflect public enthusiasm without
reflecting the potential voters on the register.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The Uganda police is scared that the crowds Bobi Wine is
pulling are a sign of his popularity. That is only partly true. Rallies are
misleading indicators of actual voter behavior. Amama Mbabazi pulled large
crowds across Uganda and got only 136,000 votes. Bobi Wine himself pulled huge
crowds in Arua City but got only 28,000 votes in the city, only 8,000 in the
wider district. I am inclined to believe that left on his own, Bobi Wine is likely
to self-destruct and alienate many potential voters. This is because he is
effective at rallying his base but very poor at growing his appeal.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Yet I am also aware that Museveni takes no chances and no
risks on such matters. He is likely to restrict Bobi Wine even if there is a
very low risk of growth in his popularity. Therefore, knowing Museveni’s
consistent strategy, it is incumbent upon the opposition to design new ways and
tricks of mobilisation that do not attract the attention of the police. One would
imagine that they have such tricks already and are using these public rallies
as a decoy to divert police attention from the real place where they are doing
the actual work. But alas, I doubt they have such thinking!<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">*****</p>Independent UGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00597910260410335839noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6321272880913128238.post-83947430024093834942023-09-09T08:45:00.001-07:002023-10-10T08:48:25.090-07:00“Jason’s law on corruption”<p> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-0DOl2UjdFh_8cq0N4fdyE8prSqcmA3z05v49QfitIdjLo4osKnVtAVVwSuZbe9KhrDZnaR2adVDjCjVx8AFhhL96cvRuwuNzVRbxkkfx41uzjO2w6Ph4ngR4BX_EYDM53zFRJBS_4YMYcXWi_2g303KV7ulqu2ANlI3KS6ZzCD8tpMozHeK2p1geysk/s600/Gabon-coup-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="346" data-original-width="600" height="185" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-0DOl2UjdFh_8cq0N4fdyE8prSqcmA3z05v49QfitIdjLo4osKnVtAVVwSuZbe9KhrDZnaR2adVDjCjVx8AFhhL96cvRuwuNzVRbxkkfx41uzjO2w6Ph4ngR4BX_EYDM53zFRJBS_4YMYcXWi_2g303KV7ulqu2ANlI3KS6ZzCD8tpMozHeK2p1geysk/s320/Gabon-coup-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">ANOTHER COUP: In practically every country where there was a change of government via a military coup, a popular uprising, an election upset or via an armed insurgency, the newcomers accused incumbents of corruption, dictatorship, tribalism and economic mismanagement.</span></td></tr></tbody></table></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b>How governance in Africa reflects structural imperatives,
not the personalities of our leaders</b><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>THE LAST WORD | Andrew M. Mwenda |</b> Recently,
someone posted an article on our WhatsApp chatgroup about the persistence of
“corruption” in Africa. It said on June 13, 1988, Pini Jason Onyegbaduo, a
popular Nigerian columnist, propounded a “Hypothesis of Corruption.” In it, he
argued that Africans are roughly bifurcated into two: the “ruling wicked; and
the “waiting wicked.” Apparently, Onyegbaduo’s article led to his thesis being
named `Jason’s Law of Corruption’ (JLC).<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Onyegbaduo argued that the “decibel of an average African’s
public outcry is directly proportional to his distance from the opportunity to
do exactly what he condemns. The difference between many a vociferous, sanctimonious
and pontificating African and the villainous, itchy-fingered kleptomaniac is
probably the absence of the opportunity to steal. In all probability, should
the opportunity occur, yesterday’s moral crusader, is more likely to crumble
and disappear under the weight of corruption.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Explained in simple terms, JLC “maintains that the farther
the distance between an African and power-authority position, the higher the
noise he makes against acts of corruption; the nearer he is to the position,
the lesser the noise he makes. When in the position (of power), the noise
ceases completely.” The commentator on the article concluded saying “suffice to
say that Pini’s corruption hypothesis has never “failed” the test when applied
in the analysis of the “bizarre behavior of Africans in power.” This is the
reason it was appropriately upgraded to the status of a “Law of Corruption.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The reason many African intellectuals fell in love with
Pini’s argument is because it echoes our deeply held assumptions about our leaders
and governments. These assumptions are borrowed from the idealised governance
in Western countries. We use Western intellectual lenses to understand and
explain ourselves to ourselves. This way, we indulge in out-of-context
moralising about governance in our societies. Our lack of analytical rigour
about our situation is the greatest triumph of the colonial project.
Colonialism and its child, neocolonialism, could not have succeeded without
controlling how we think. Bob Marley called this “mental slavery”.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Pini’s observation is correct. The anticorruption crusader
in opposition politics in Africa today becomes a kleptomaniac the next day when
he captures power. But this is not because he is wicked. It is because he works
under circumstances that make corruption the only affordable, cost-effective
and cost-efficient strategy of managing power relations in a poor country.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I have read politics in Africa since my adolescent years. In
practically every country where there was a change of government via a military
coup, a popular uprising, an election upset or via an armed insurgency, the
newcomers accused incumbents of corruption, dictatorship, tribalism and
economic mismanagement. With very few exceptions (I can only think of
post-genocide Rwanda, and even here President Paul Kagame’s opponents would
disagree), all our governments have been accused of the same ills.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Should we, therefore, say Africans are inherently corrupt,
dictatorial, tribalistic and terrible managers of their economies? Many
Africans who make this argument are regurgitating racist propaganda. And this
construction of Africans is not innocent. Western powers need to dominate
Africa for purposes of advancing their interests. They cannot do this by
relying on force. They need to first capture our minds. So, they propagate
ideas of our leaders being wicked. This serves to justify their interventions
in our affairs; with economic policies that benefit their corporations, with
political recommendations that allow them to penetrate and direct our politics,
or with military interventions like they did in Libya.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Instead of dealing with the structures of our societies and
how these promote particular governance strategies, the analyst, the journalist,
the academic and the politician attribute everything to the personalities of
leaders: they are evil, wicked, selfish, stupid, don’t care about their people
etc. The governance strategies African leaders use to govern our societies are
imposed on them by the structural circumstances of our societies. That is why
various changes in government over a period of 60 years in 54 countries have
not brought about a fundamental change in these governance strategies. African
elites draw their understanding of governance from Western textbooks. Yet these
textbooks do not deal with politics as it plays out in practice even in Western
societies. Rather they posit the ideal.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The ideal governance structures of the West are rarely
practiced to the letter in those societies. But even if they were, their
success would be because of the structural circumstances of a fairly
homogenous, highly educated, high income and urban structure of their
societies. African countries are poor, ethnically fractionalised, agrarian with
low levels of education. The only way to understand how to manage such a
society is to look at the governance strategies of Western societies when they
were at the same level of per capita income, per capital revenue and per capita
spending.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Most African countries today are at the level of development
(in income and social structure) of European countries in 1820. And what were
the governance strategies of Western countries when they were exactly like
Africa today? Without exception, they relied heavily on corruption (patronage)
and repression (dictatorship) to manage power relations. There was no
distinction between the private resources of the king or duke and the public
wealth of the state. Public officials were recruited based on whom you knew
rather than what you knew (social connections as opposed to merit).<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Were Europeans leaders of that time wicked and anti-people?
Certainly not. Were they ignorant of the values of merit-based recruitment and
democracy? Most elites had read the works of Greek scholars on democracy and
Chinese texts on meritocratic recruitment. Regardless of all the idealistic
statements in the U.S. Declaration of Independence (1776) and the French
Declaration of the Rights of Man (1789), it took both countries two centuries
to move towards the governance ideal stated in those two documents. And this
governance ideal came near to reality as a result of the structural changes in
their societies and the incomes that came with it.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Western leaders of yesteryears governed through a combination
of corruption and patronage because those were the only effective and
affordable means they had given the structural conditions of their countries
and the revenues available to the state. Why then present African leaders of
today as wicked for employing governance strategies typical of managing
politics in poor agrarian societies? In fact, I would like to write a book
titled: Weapons of the Poor: Governance Strategies in Developing Countries. The
aim would be to demonstrate that leaders in Africa are not pathological but
reflections of the circumstances of their societies.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">*****<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">amwenda@independent.co.ug</p><p></p>Independent UGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00597910260410335839noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6321272880913128238.post-43921270145564016962023-08-30T08:49:00.002-07:002023-10-10T08:51:56.270-07:00A fresh look at coups in Africa<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFN0DVss81BItZf66XejAoVy082LhVFdibeUhF2AzMZNeneOzgi2XIGSTlksXKPDbm96sqNE_SH0tgFCMKufH79bP4O-xEpW8CjC6aclajNkonTXT6DE_6Wy2WbrZBF7brYM9gVTlo94HT1QJQTMf5tdEMXq07bLqfIfwOp7AICzJscSqQWBDrHaEYJGk/s600/Gabon-president.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="398" data-original-width="600" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFN0DVss81BItZf66XejAoVy082LhVFdibeUhF2AzMZNeneOzgi2XIGSTlksXKPDbm96sqNE_SH0tgFCMKufH79bP4O-xEpW8CjC6aclajNkonTXT6DE_6Wy2WbrZBF7brYM9gVTlo94HT1QJQTMf5tdEMXq07bLqfIfwOp7AICzJscSqQWBDrHaEYJGk/s320/Gabon-president.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Ali Bongo of Gabon is now under house arrest. VIDEO GRAB</span></td></tr></tbody></table>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>Why the Gabon coup is a wake-up call to intellectuals in
Africa to rethink politics on the continent</b><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>THE LAST WORD | Andrew M. Mwenda |</b> There has been yet
another a successful military coup in Africa, this time in Gabon. This is a
country that has not known a military coup in all its history. It has been
under a family dynasty for 56 years. The coup in Gabon follows one in Niger and
before that, others in Burkina Faso, Guinea, Sudan, Mali, CAR, Sudan, Zimbabwe
etc. And it will not be the last.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">There is an urgent need to review the debate about Africa
from the stale arguments over democracy versus authoritarianism. We need to
recast it on the fragility of the postcolonial state, the legitimacy of
inherited institutions and procedures which produce our leaders. We used to
think coups are caused by dictatorial leaders clinging to power. Yet the
governments in Mali, Guinea, Niger and Burkina Faso that have been overthrown
were democracies where an opposition party and candidate had defeated an
incumbent.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The West African customs union, ECOWAS, has been threatening
to intervene militarily in Niger claiming it is because the army overthrew a
democratically elected government. Now the soldiers in Gabon claim to have
intervened to defend democracy because elections had been rigged. What will be
the attitude of ECOWAS? And if coups continue in West Africa, will ECOWAS
intervene everywhere to restore democratic governments that are incapable of
protecting themselves from military upstarts?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Of course, ECOWAS is acting on the instigation of big
powers, most especially France and the USA, with a vested interest in that
country’s uranium. The French and Americans, through their client “regimes” in
ECOWAS, are using claims of restoring “democratic government” to mask and
justify what is really naked economic greed. Some of these military coups in
West Africa may be seeking to reassert sovereignty against foreign domination
and exploitation. Whether they will succeed is another matter.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In this column last week, I referred to a debate I had on
Twitter Spaces with a democracy jihadist, Jeffrey Smith. He claimed that
despots are on the march in Africa. Apparently, his job it to help us Africans
regain our freedom. Smith may be a genuine idealist. But regardless of his
subjective motivations, the objective outcome of his campaign for democracy is
to help Western powers and their corporations gain control over our countries
and their resources. In the 19th Century, Christian missionaries came claiming
to seek to save our souls. This only helped their home governments establish
ideological hold on us, leading to colonization. Democracy has replaced
Christianity as the ideological weapon the West uses to masks and justify its
imperial ambitions.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">For the new colonialism to work, it needs an evangelical
priesthood. For this priesthood to be effective, it has to be genuine in its
idealism. So, people like Smith could be well intentioned. If they were obvious
self-seeking foot-soldiers of the economic ambitions of their home governments
and corporations, they would not be believable. Dr. David Livingstone, like so
many of his ilk across Africa, was genuinely committed to “emancipating”
African souls from “Satanic” worship. To gain ideological hold over us,
Europeans needed to win our souls. That meant discrediting our religions as
Satanic. This is happening today where our leaders are labelled corrupt tyrants
and our political systems, despotic.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This is not to say that claims by the secular priesthood of
democracy are pulled out of thin air. On the contrary, many of their
accusations are felt deeply by Africans. But nowhere is propaganda more
effective (and dangerous) than when it uses (and abuses) obvious facts. Many of
our leaders and governments are incompetent and corrupt. However, the West
seeks to exploit these internal weaknesses, not to liberate us, but to justify
its interventions as it did in Libya, with devastating consequences. Many
African elites don’t see this hypocrisy. Neither do many appreciate the need to
be our own liberators. No external force helped America or France or Britain or
Italy become a democracy. Why then do many white democracy evangelists think
Africa needs them to democratize?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The emergence of an evangelical priesthood in the West to
spread democracy as a universal secular religion began after the end of the
Second World War. This was largely because Europe had witnessed powerful
totalitarian governments under communism, Nazism and fascism during the
interwar years. Here individual liberty was severely circumscribed by powerful
states. The democracy priesthood in the West emerged to counter the power of
the state in defense of individual freedom.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But this context is the opposite in Africa. Our biggest
challenge is not of powerful states stifling individual freedom but weak states
unable to ensure the protection of personal life and property. The challenge is
therefore not to constrain powerful states but to build the capabilities of
weak states so that they perform the basic function of ensuring a stable
political order. By making the spread of democracy the core aim of its
missionary activity, the Western democracy jihad is imposing its circumstances
on an entirely different context. The results are often counterproductive.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The success of military coups in West Africa is a result of
weak states and even weaker civil society. Democracy is an ideal some may
desire but there is lack of basic political and economic infrastructure to
sustain it. In our countries, the most organized group able to act effectively
is the army. Soldiers in Africa come from our societies. They are sons,
husbands, brothers, cousins, and neighbors of other Africans. They suffer the
same problems as other citizens. Hence, they are often driven to act to the
desires of their fellow citizens. Coups may, therefore, reflect popular
aspirations.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Intellectually we see governments dichotomously as
democratic or authoritarian. But this dichotomy is a Western notion.
Governments in Africa run on what we can call “traditional” systems. Their
character, practices and conduct are based on evolved norms, values and beliefs
embedded in our social consciousness. Their actions, which we may see as
dysfunctional, are often ways leaders seek to domesticate a foreign imposed
state.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Democracy is not always a solution to our problems.
Elections do not necessarily confer legitimacy on the state and its political
leaders. Often, they deepen social divisions and heighten political tensions.
The genocide in Rwanda was incubated in the context of opening the country to
democratic participation and contestation. Military men may act as arbiters in
political conflicts even though their interventions may not solve, but instead
exacerbate, the crisis of the state. Coups are not about democracy versus
authoritarianism but the legitimacy of the state.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">*****<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">amwenda@independent.co.ug<o:p></o:p></p>Independent UGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00597910260410335839noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6321272880913128238.post-10643333122478467272023-08-26T08:58:00.001-07:002023-10-10T09:01:40.646-07:00Meet the secular mujahedeen<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjspKL_emELtD2_sWoxidfqXoe3QfXw4wm8T5v_-VmAYG2tdYCUEe6DEgSyS9RbqmnWEcDbjLXOURn05MSXIF-iqy3l5lRZoKQlFtxRbCdHmmckwkc4DjJOTLADj-5EoYgqiwsPzmkdgvW3S2voHeyo1o_kM7kWeAvY7sjyO_y4793nVYYHAXEjoasoxY/s640/Democracy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="357" data-original-width="640" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjspKL_emELtD2_sWoxidfqXoe3QfXw4wm8T5v_-VmAYG2tdYCUEe6DEgSyS9RbqmnWEcDbjLXOURn05MSXIF-iqy3l5lRZoKQlFtxRbCdHmmckwkc4DjJOTLADj-5EoYgqiwsPzmkdgvW3S2voHeyo1o_kM7kWeAvY7sjyO_y4793nVYYHAXEjoasoxY/s320/Democracy.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><b>The transformation of democracy from a political form to a
religious movement</b><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>THE LAST WORD | Andrew M. Mwenda | </b> Last
week, I had an encounter with a democracy jihadist called Jeffrey Smith during
a debate on Twitter (X) Spaces. The next day, he took to Twitter (X) accusing
me of supporting despotism in Uganda. Smith, a white American, thinks he cares
more about freedom in Uganda than me. Never mind his fellow black American
citizens, after 300 years of slavery and another 100 years under apartheid now
live under a regime of mass incarceration. There are more blacks in American
jails than in college. This is not to mention native Americans who suffered
genocide under America’s “democracy,” and today live in native reserves
considered “dependent nations” without any constitutional guarantees but as
wards of congress.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Yet Smith does not see the need to struggle for the rights
of his fellow citizens in America. Instead, he, and many of his ilk, see
themselves as saviours sent by (God-knowswho) to save Africans from despotism.
While democracy in America has kept blacks under an iron fist, and native
Americans in reserves, Smith finds his moral calling in Africa. His role is to
fight and liberate us from our leaders. He does not see Africans as active
participants in the struggle for their emancipation. Instead, he sees them as
passive spectators receiving international charity from him. This is
colonialism 101 but he cannot see the parallels between him and his
forebearers.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In the 19th Century, white people came to Africa and
colonized us claiming it was for our own good: teach us Christianity (to
emancipate our souls); Civilization (to save us from our primitive ways) and
Commerce (to liberate us from poverty). Many spent their fortunes, expended
their energies and risked their lives to realize these noble goals in their
imagination. Behind these high-sounding intentions lay the power of their
governments and business interests who wanted to dominate us in order to
exploit us. The result was colonial terror and genocide.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This attitude of white saviours has not gone away. Instead,
it has changed from the religious to the secular, from Christianity and
Civilization to Democracy and Human Rights. Democracy has been elevated from a
political system specific to a particular time and place to a universal system
applicable to every country regardless of history, culture and circumstances.
While the secular priesthood (activists and academics) promotes democracy
ideologically [perhaps driven by high ideals], its governments and their
business interests exploit this idealism to mask their agenda of domination and
exploitation. Thus, behind the idealism of Jeffrey Smith (the David Livingstone
of our time) lies more sinister motives.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Smith speaks like a religious crusader. He pulls “evidence”
from thin air and makes wild assertions. In the Twitter (X) debate, he claimed
that there is “a lot of evidence” that democracies grow faster economically and
deliver better healthcare and education than despotic governments. Here, Smith,
reduces governments to a dichotomy of democracy and despotism. He also seeks to
justify democracy by its outcomes. Sadly, historic and contemporary evidence
disproves his thesis. All of today’s rich countries (US$25,000 in per capital
income) became rich before they became democracies. Democracy was a byproduct
of economic development not a cause of it<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Today, China, a non-democracy, has been growing much faster
than India, a democracy. The “despotic” state of China also outperforms its
democratic Indian counterpart in the delivery of health, education and
infrastructure; and is even more active and effective in fighting corruption.
According to the IMF, the 10 fastest growing economies in the world over the
last 5, 10, 15 and 20 years have been dominated by governments that are
“despotic.” In Africa, the 10 fastest growing economies of the last 5, 10, 15
and 20 years have been dominated by Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Rwanda,
Tanzania, Mozambique and Uganda that are “despotic.” Democracies, such as Kenya
and Ghana appear in a minority.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Historical and contemporary evidence suggests that when
countries gain a certain level of development (with a larger educated middle
class) they tend to grow towards democracy. Our countries are agrarian and
poor, with nominal per capita incomes below US$2,000, low levels of education
and high levels of ethnic fractionalization. Their aspiration is to grow into
rich countries with per capita incomes above US$25,000. Prof Paul Collier,
basing on statistical evidence from around the world, concluded that democracy
tends to be destabilizing when per capita income is below US$2,800. Above that,
authoritarianism becomes destabilizing. For democracy lovers like me, this is
disappointing, even depressing. But it is important to separate one’s values
from one’s analysis.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">During the Twitter (X) Spaces, I asked Smith to name just
one country that was poor, began as democracy and became rich. He named Ghana
and Mauritius. Sadly, Ghana has a per capita income of US$2,000, Mauritius,
US$11,500. None qualifies to have grown rich at least not in the way Singapore,
Taiwan, South Korea and Japan transformed under some form of despotism. But
even if we were to accept Mauritius, it is clearly an exception that proves the
rule. There are 42 countries with nominal per capita income above US$25,000.
None transformed through democracy<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I don’t think Smith is a bad person with evil intentions
against our country. Neither do I think he is a racist – at least not
consciously. He may be a good person with a genuine desire to see Ugandans live
in freedom. I share his aspirations. I am a Westernized African in my
intellectual tastes. However, I recognize that my aspirations have to be
tempered by reality. In an ideal world, I would love to see liberal democracy
everywhere. But it is wrong (and even dangerous) to insist that such an ideal
can thrive in every country at any time and under any circumstances. Besides,
none of the Western countries that preach democracy practice it according to
the ideal.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Smith and other democracy mongers need to learn before they
lecture. No political form is eternal with universal application. All are
products of their time and circumstances. Democracy was born in a very specific
context. It has worked there because it evolved organically out of that
context. Yet is not clear its future is certain or guaranteed. The factors that
produced it and have sustained it cannot continue indefinitely. Democracy
became dominant only after 1945 in large part because of continually rising
incomes and reducing inequality. Since 1980, we have experienced growing income
inequality and growing frustration with democracy in the West. Right wing
movements hostile to it are surging. Before the West can prescribe democracy
for everyone, let them look at themselves first.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">*****<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">amwenda@independent.co.ug</p>Independent UGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00597910260410335839noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6321272880913128238.post-6068486793179665202023-08-21T09:02:00.001-07:002023-10-10T09:08:55.865-07:00Uganda, gays, and the World Bank<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1t6H6P3_aroUd3px-NfKZCEBdNxWVakzEmELwRJwtOdIcF7thw1nTk90KmyOs2joMFYOS4Xo9dRVxbeZ3ijzTh1uCPsqRONlz8TGWp_nXYMlY08WPK38zBg1Md6PpOf-K6P96KzwYCNpoEPGUbiSf59cReAc_Wll9SLI0DHbr7GmfkARIlwkbZLZRCHU/s640/World-Bank.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="640" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1t6H6P3_aroUd3px-NfKZCEBdNxWVakzEmELwRJwtOdIcF7thw1nTk90KmyOs2joMFYOS4Xo9dRVxbeZ3ijzTh1uCPsqRONlz8TGWp_nXYMlY08WPK38zBg1Md6PpOf-K6P96KzwYCNpoEPGUbiSf59cReAc_Wll9SLI0DHbr7GmfkARIlwkbZLZRCHU/s320/World-Bank.jpg" width="320" /></a></div></div><br /><b>How our prejudices have combined with an exhausted
government to create a disaster for our country</b><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b><o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>THE LAST WORD | Andrew M. Mwenda | </b>The
mighty World Bank has suspended all new loan applications to Uganda for passing
the anti-homosexuality act. The law is primitive. I feel ashamed to be a
citizen of a country that passes such barbaric legislation against a community
for being who they are. Yet, although I am a defender of gay (and all other
human) rights in Uganda, I do not agree this struggle needs foreign assistance
in form of money, lectures and threats. As I have argued in this column for
decades now, these foreign intrusions into our domestic affairs are often more
harmful than helpful.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Ugandan gay activists have argued consistently against
foreign aid cuts and travel restrictions insisting that they are
counter-productive. First because they harm the country generally – including
gays. Second, they furnish Ugandan homophobes with the “evidence” that
homosexuality is a Western imposition on the country. This undermines the
legitimacy of local agency. Ugandan gay activists are, therefore, mature and
reflective; especially when compared to their counterparts in politics. Ugandan
opposition politicians keep calling for foreign aid cuts, travel restrictions
and economic sanctions from the West as the pressure button to promote the
democratic reforms and respect for human rights they demand.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Inviting foreigners to become arbiters in our domestic
national affairs not only undermines our sovereignty but it also undermines the
very democracy we are trying to build. The worst reflection of this is the
recent case taken to the International Criminal Court against President Yoweri
Museveni and his son, Muhoozi Kainerugaba. Put yourself in their shoes: you
have control of the security infrastructure. The threat of jail after
retirement gives you an incentive to cling to power at all costs. This means
any political transition has to be contested to death. This is likely to
bequeath chaos to the country rather than a peaceful transfer of power.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The stupidity of our political opposition aside, the passing
of the anti-homosexuality law is a consequence and a reflection of how far our
government has corroded. As the President closes in on his 80th birthday next
year, he has grown tired and bored. His government has become lethargic,
apathetic and directionless. There is a tragic lack of strategic thinking about
important issues that concern the country. As a consequence, decisions that
have powerful implications on the future of the country are taken on the basis
of individual self-interest with little regard for the national good or out of
momentary feelings of those responsible.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Uganda has long and deep connections with the Western world.
These connections are historical, cultural and economic. More than financial
aid, the Western world is the largest source of foreign tourists into our
country. We also need to look at the West as a major destination for our
exports. Western firms invest in our country singly or in partnership with
Ugandans. And Western financial institutions extend loans to our businesses
here. To pass a law well knowing it is going to discourage lenders, investors,
tourists, and consumers of our goods from interacting with us shows absence of
strategic thinking in decision making.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">For instance, what injury was Uganda trying to cure in
passing this law? Many politicians argue that it is to protect our children
from abuse by adults. The second, to stop “promotion” of homosexuality as a
normal lifestyle. Let us unpack each of these. Existing law in Uganda states
that any adult who has sex with a minor has committed a crime of defilement and
is liable, upon conviction, to a sentence of life in jail. The law does not
target any one group. This achieves the aim of protecting our children without
alienating our Western partners. To pass a law specifically aimed at
homosexuals lacks strategic sense. It does not add any value, except to make
some feel emotionally satisfied but at the price of undermining trade,
investment and tourism with Western countries.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">According to the police crime report, out of 12,700 cases of
defilement reported in 2022, only 300 were boys, 12,400 were little girls. In
all the cases, the offenders were men. This means that 97 percent of defilement
cases in Uganda are of adult men abusing little girls. Our parliament has not
felt it important to reinforce the law to protect girls. Obviously, this is
because in our misguided minds, we consider such abuse within normal sexual
parameters and therefore tolerable. The West is right to complain that this law
is discriminatory, targeting a group in our society for being who they are.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This leaves only prohibiting “promotion” of homosexuality as
the justification for this barbaric law. What does “promotion” mean in the eyes
of our homophobes? Am I promoting homosexuality by arguing that homosexuals are
normal people and homosexuality a normal sexual lifestyle? If yes, I (and so
many other Ugandans) do this every week on traditional and social media. If the
law makers were serious, how come they have not arrested and charged me under
this law alongside thousands of Ugandans who argue that homosexuality is
normal? This shows our legislators and their supporters were not even thinking
about what they were doing.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Ugandans will continue with their homosexual liaisons
confident that government is not going to be inspecting their bedrooms to see
who is sleeping with who. Why, then, pass a law you know you are not going to
enforce yet will alienate you from a very important source of tourists,
investors, investment funds and trade opportunities? Secondly, our parliament
can criminalize homosexuality but it cannot abolish it. Therefore, prohibition
of “promotion” of homosexuality will only stop healthcare centers from
providing sex education plus mental and clinical treatment to homosexuals. What
does Uganda benefit by denying a section of its society access to mental and
clinical treatment, because it has made its existence a crime? Note: Uganda has
criminalised the use of drugs but it has never criminalised treatment of drug
offenders.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Thus, every time I have appeared for debates on television
or radio and even in private conversations with Ugandan elites of the homophobe
variety, I have been appalled by how much their prejudices blind them to
critical thinking. While the costs of this law are well known on trade,
investment and tourism (I am deliberately omitting foreign financial
“assistance” because I do not believe in it), the law does not have any
enforceable benefits. It only gives us some sentimental satisfaction that
something has been done against something we consider “evil.” Is this a worthy tradeoff?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">******<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">amwenda@independent.co.ug<o:p></o:p></p>Independent UGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00597910260410335839noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6321272880913128238.post-20266474762931974272023-08-12T09:09:00.006-07:002023-10-10T09:11:08.626-07:00Respect the coup in Niger<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhukW9EKFqwO2imZGAxMTAZD3gi0EZ5pAZvt3u68ca9zTirqH04v-acO_wVudpvo4Pch0k_metqDxVN9b3BA8dHcm57jIRFP1p4eCM3s0H8QnuUlCHmJE9OKkDlSngGGzp4a362Xlf6rn-oKZM0h0PYwNvaPZy7r8ke4GSj8Nefrlw1-S7xjbtHaphSY3Y/s640/niger-map.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="363" data-original-width="640" height="182" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhukW9EKFqwO2imZGAxMTAZD3gi0EZ5pAZvt3u68ca9zTirqH04v-acO_wVudpvo4Pch0k_metqDxVN9b3BA8dHcm57jIRFP1p4eCM3s0H8QnuUlCHmJE9OKkDlSngGGzp4a362Xlf6rn-oKZM0h0PYwNvaPZy7r8ke4GSj8Nefrlw1-S7xjbtHaphSY3Y/s320/niger-map.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><b>The most likely costs and consequences of attempts by the
international community to impose a political solution on any country</b><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b><o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>THE LAST WORD | Andrew M. Mwenda |</b> Africa
seems to be going back to the 1960s, 70s and 80s when military coups and civil
wars were a regular occurrence in many countries on the continent. Since 2013,
we have experienced eleven successful military coups: in Egypt, Sudan, Chad,
Mali, Burkina Faso (two in 2022 alone), Mauritania, CAR, Zimbabwe, Guinea and
most recently in Niger. There has also been a non-military self-coup in
Tunisia. Over the same period, Africa has experienced 29 attempted coups. We
have also witnessed the breakout or continuation of civil wars in Libya, DRC,
Mozambique, Libya, CAR, South Sudan, Sudan, Ethiopia, Mali, Cameroun and since
2019, the resurgence of Al Shabab in Somalia as a formidable fighting force
after having been degraded by the UPDF between 2012 and 2019.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The causes of these coups and civil wars are many and may
vary from country to country. However, the one common theme in Africa is that
our states are young and fragile. With the exception of Ethiopia, all of them
are a colonial creation of just over 100 years ago a hotchpotch of varied
communities lumped together for the convenience of the colonialist not of the
resident population. They lack all the non-tangible psychological elements that
hold nations together: shared delusions, myths, assumptions and aspirations.
Listen to the national anthems of Uganda and Buganda and you will be struck by
the void in the Ugandan anthem yet feel the soul of Buganda in its anthem; its
aspirations and myths and the dreams of its people.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It is a miracle that these colonial concoctions have held.
Perhaps it is the incentives created by the post-World War Two international
system, and certainly it is the incredible political skill of post-independence
African leaders that has allowed many of these fictions of nation-states to
persist. In Europe, North America and Oceania, the modern “nation-state” was
created through ethnic cleansing after many years of violent conflict. Building
a stable political order requires a lot of time, often measured in generations
instead of years. The power to coerce is the most critical in this process, but
it is only successful when military victory to establish order is followed by
the development of normative values and a cognitive apparatus that inculcate a
sense of belonging among the subject population.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This brings me to the recent coup in Niger and the response
of the regional body, ECOWAS, and other international bodies and countries such
as the AU, EU, UN, USA, France etc. All these institutions and countries have
called upon the military to immediately return power to the democratically
elected president. The assumption is that elections automatically produce a
desirable government that must be upheld under all circumstance (of course for
the USA, such a government should not threaten her interests). Yet, democratic
theory does not hold that government is desirable simply because it has been
democratically elected.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The original definition of democracy was best captured by
Abraham Lincoln as “a government of the people, by the people and for the
people.” Here, democracy was about the source of power (“the will of the
people” as articulated by Jean-Jacques Rousseau) and the purpose of that power
(to serve the common good). Then in 1940, Joseph Schumpeter published his
ground-breaking work, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy. He rejected the idea
of democracy being about the source of power and the purpose of power. Instead,
he argued, democracy is about the procedures of winning and retaining power.
(Robert Dahl later encapsulated this in two key elements of democracy:
participation and contestation).<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Thus, if individuals are free to organise in a voluntary
fashion, if they have unfettered access to media and can assemble freely, if
elections are free and fair, then a government born out of that process would
be democratic. With this argument, Schumpeter unleashed the dogs of
intellectual war. But by the early 1970s, a consensus had emerged that
Schumpeter was right. Dahl, one of the greatest theorists of democracy, has
argued that democratically elected leaders may win free and fair elections by
whipping up sectarian, religious and racial sentiments. In power, they may be
venal, incompetent, corrupt and even violent. That makes such a government
undesirable but it does not make it undemocratic.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">So, we return to the coup in Niger. We hear a cacophony of
international calls on the military to hand power back to the “democratically
elected president”. The international community is literally dictating how
individual nations should govern themselves. But how can an abstract entity
such as “the international community” dictate how a particular country should
be governed? How much local knowledge does this abstract entity have to decide
for Niger or any country for that matter? Are democratic elections the only (or
even best) way to build a nation? Historic evidence suggests that democracy was
the end product of nation building and economic transformation, not the cause
of either or both.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Of course, we have limited evidence of the true feelings of
the people of Niger. But the little we have seen on television and social media
is that the population seem to have welcomed the coup. What if the people
genuinely feel the democratically elected president and his government were a
sham – a coalition of corrupt, incompetent ethnic manipulators out to line
their own pockets? I don’t know the truths but I believe the matter of who
rules Niger should be left to the people of Niger to sort out. We need to have
faith in their ability to shape their destiny. You should remember that foreign
interference is often a negative influence on domestic politics. This is
largely because it comes armed with an abstract universal theory of what a good
government should look like. This makes it blind to local realities.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The army in Niger is made up of citizens of that country.
Attempts by outsiders to impose a solution on Niger may be counter-productive.
ECOWAS has threatened to send it a military force to reinstall the deposed
president. The army may remain united and resist foreign invasion with the
support of the people. This may lead to a protracted civil war that could lead
to the collapse of the state resulting into chaos as in Libya and Iraq. This is
the same problem in Somalia where the international community fails to see that
Al Shabab, which it calls a terrorist organisation, is actually the legitimate
representative of the genuine aspirations of the people, not the foreign funded
government in Mogadishu.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">******<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">amwenda@independent.co.ug</p>Independent UGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00597910260410335839noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6321272880913128238.post-90002986590964422972023-08-05T09:11:00.012-07:002023-10-10T09:13:57.964-07:00On Uganda’s political development<p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaOHy7G24mF3LDaY5GbUasvHsURvukbepq4VsVQ1FRY7-y9HpnVljkqWNwZzeBniMkshQPodwIvfloGiE8VDLgX1N1j3SZixKbqKNMqSenMh8qY0NkRZznGWSPSg5jir_6JScNTflQSuTK42qRc_ihmwdPKZZRGm9LTCX-frlH7Gt4VWqAP7cdNS3Yats/s640/Museveni-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="426" data-original-width="640" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaOHy7G24mF3LDaY5GbUasvHsURvukbepq4VsVQ1FRY7-y9HpnVljkqWNwZzeBniMkshQPodwIvfloGiE8VDLgX1N1j3SZixKbqKNMqSenMh8qY0NkRZznGWSPSg5jir_6JScNTflQSuTK42qRc_ihmwdPKZZRGm9LTCX-frlH7Gt4VWqAP7cdNS3Yats/s320/Museveni-2.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b style="text-align: left;">FILE PHOTO:</b><span style="text-align: left;"> President Yoweri Museveni</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><b>Why I believe that Museveni would make a strategic partner
in negotiating political reform</b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b><o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>THE LAST WORD | Andrew M. Mwenda | </b>Last week,
I argued that political development and democratic progress in Uganda have been
held back by the attitude of the opposition towards President Yoweri Museveni.
It is true Museveni has often employed brutal methods to retain his power by
repressing opposition to his rule. But this has been a secondary strategy of
last resort. For the most part, Museveni has used persuasion and cooptation
(patronage/bribery) to consolidate his power. But as his popularity and
therefore credibility and legitimacy have waned, his reliance on patronage has
grown in tandem with a tendency to resort to repression to hold the smoldering
edifice of his system together.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Although this points to a grim future for democracy in the
country, it can also be an opportunity for political reform towards more open
society. Museveni’s retreat to repression through abductions and torture of
opposition activists is not a demonstration of strength but of vulnerability.
This means that political repression can actually become a seedbed for
democracy. Because he is more vulnerable, Museveni is much more willing to
negotiate than when he was at the pinnacle of his popularity and legitimacy.
For we must remember that throughout his political career, Museveni has always
been open to negotiations with his opponents, including armed and violent ones,
even though on his own terms.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Democracy cannot be birthed by the barrel of the gun. It can
only grow through negotiations and compromise. Yet the opposition in Uganda is
hostile to this very idea. The opposition in Uganda is not monolithic. However,
the opposition I am talking about here are two radical groups – Defiance led by
Dr. Kizza Besigye and NUP led by Bobi Wine. These are the powerful forces of
the opposition with great passion and enthusiasm. They are equally the most intolerant.
Because of their power, they have stifled the more liberal minded and tolerant
factions of the opposition; especially those inclined to negotiations and
compromise.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Within Defiance and NUP, negotiations are seen as a sign of
weakness and evidence of bribery; compromise is capitulation. They also see
Museveni as a devil, equal in evil to Adolf Hitler and therefore an enemy to
destroy not an opponent to defeat. This attitude frees them from all moral
restraint in terms of actions they can take to get rid of him. Of course, this
compliment is returned by Museveni’s apparatchik, the more reason security
services abduct and torture their activists. As I argued last week, the
opposition have thus become strategic captives of their subjective feelings. This
is a dangerous for our country, for it undermines reform.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">We need to move from both extremes to the center. The
possibilities are many even though their chances look bleak. The first step is
to avoid introducing foreigners into our struggles the way Bobi Wine recently
went to ICC. This is because foreign powers come with their own national
interests. It is worse when they have no national interest at stake. For then
they are self-righteous and self-righteousness is a much more stubborn trait to
deal with than self-interest. Besides, even when they are well intentioned,
outside powers come armed with ideological beliefs, prejudices, assumptions,
etc. They therefore seek to promote solutions based on text book theories that
may not fit our particular context.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The political development and democratisation of Uganda will
depend more on us talking to each other than fighting each other. This does not
mean that fighting is always bad. As long as the fights are civil and based on
principle and seeking to achieve national objectives, they are okay. But every
fight on the street must aim at forcing negotiations on a round table. A
government born out of negotiation and compromise will be more inclined to
govern by similar means. Equally, government born by obliterating its opponents
will be more inclined to govern by similar means. The solution for Uganda is to
reject those who seek total defeat of their opponents.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I believe that Museveni is a good candidate for political
progress based on negotiations and compromise. Throughout his career, Museveni
has fought many opponents, armed and civic, and in different parts of the
country and at different times. In the case of armed/violent rebellion, he has
sought to secure a military victory first. After defeating his opponents on the
battlefield, he has offered them political negotiations. The outcome has always
been to integrate their fighters into the NRA/UPDF and their political leaders
into his cabinet and diplomatic service. He has won over or coopted many of his
civic opponents by not keeping grudges.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Therefore, the potential for negotiations leading to a
government of national unity exists with Museveni as president. The problem is
that the most passionate opposition activists see this as surrender. They want
to win everything they want and demand; so, they have made the perfect the
enemy of the good. But this strategy is self-defeating. The opposition have
been unable to dislodge Museveni militarily or through elections or civil
disobedience. This has given the president time and space to employ his salami
strategy – to keep slicing the opposition bit by bit. Every year, his
credibility, popularity and legitimacy decline. And each year, he slices more
layers upon layers of the opposition’s leadership.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The irony is that as Museveni has grown weaker and weaker,
and those hostile to his rule have grown larger and larger, the president has
gained greater control of the political machinery. He has skillfully exploited
the radicalism of Defiance and NUP to win over moderate leaders of the
opposition. In the process, he has cut the head (leadership) from the body
(followership). The large mass of Ugandans who could rally against him do not
find a sufficient number of leaders with experience, skills and political
profile to convert their frustrations into an effective political force. This
has left Museveni in an uneasy but still good position: he is presiding over
the piling up of social dynamite but is also holding the buttons to the
detonator.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It does not make strategic sense for the opposition to lock
themselves out of a potential power-sharing arrangement. Over the years, I have
grown wary of the politics of winner-take-all. We need a constitution where
power is shared based on each political party’s performance in elections
as Rwanda does. This would incentivise our politicians to moderate their
language during campaigns knowing that your opponent in elections is likely to
be your partner in government the better to be civil towards them.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">*****<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">amwenda@independent.co.ug</p>Independent UGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00597910260410335839noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6321272880913128238.post-30650631212663800182023-07-29T09:22:00.001-07:002023-10-10T09:24:34.082-07:00The tragedy of Uganda’s opposition<p><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifOggpsRjQZJdW30RhVCek6bmHlKYm7CNrw0f9RjBOxjw7V7RmT6ralB8XrBJOsMMtPp2rX4DZF6RpEIKNIEix5pRXOW65hrwaEeCRutPaLM2BZnVROEXdCuB0E5J9DjB1bohyphenhyphenOaeNDWFqsVMhWE6UVHDVD3MOYk19hgASzi9EHUZ4MGcFxXTX8aiPSEo/s640/Besigye-and-Bobi-WIne-.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="398" data-original-width="640" height="199" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifOggpsRjQZJdW30RhVCek6bmHlKYm7CNrw0f9RjBOxjw7V7RmT6ralB8XrBJOsMMtPp2rX4DZF6RpEIKNIEix5pRXOW65hrwaEeCRutPaLM2BZnVROEXdCuB0E5J9DjB1bohyphenhyphenOaeNDWFqsVMhWE6UVHDVD3MOYk19hgASzi9EHUZ4MGcFxXTX8aiPSEo/s320/Besigye-and-Bobi-WIne-.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Besigye and Bobi Wine in talks early this year.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><b>Why our country needs creative politicians who can sequence
ultimate goals and penultimate aims</b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b><o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>THE LAST WORD | Andrew M. Mwenda | </b>The
opposition in Uganda claim to have a broad strategic objective: to end
dictatorship, incompetence, corruption, human rights abuses and build political
institutions and implement public policies that can create a politically
democratic and economically prosperous country. They have set the removal of
President Yoweri Museveni from power as the first step to achieving that goal.
Over the years, however, this first step of their struggle has become so
consuming that they have lost sight of their main aim. Today, the removal of
Museveni has become an end in itself.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">If one’s strategic aim is to democratise Uganda and promote
economic prosperity, there are different ways to realise some/part of these
goals. Here, the removal of Museveni from office would be important since it
would give one full power to implement their preferred political and economic
reforms. But what if this objective is not (and cannot be) achieved in the
short, medium or even long term? Are there things that can be done in the
interim to advance the cause of reform even when the ultimate objective
removing Museveni from power has not yet been achieved?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">One can use street protests where the aim is clearly
articulated and targeted at eliciting a specific government reaction. They can
identify a popular grievance and rally the public around it like Raila
Odinga is doing with the cost of living in Kenya now. Here, protest is the
strategy while a specific government response is the aim. This means you use
protest to force negotiations exactly what Raila is trying to do in Kenya. On
June 24, President William Ruto tweeted he is ready for talks with him.
Although Raila set terms for the talks, anyone with basic knowledge of Kenyan
politics knows he is posturing as a bargaining chip to bolster his negotiating
power. Soon Raila and Ruto will meet.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Compare this with Uganda. In 2011, Kizza Besigye led Walk to
Work protests against rising inflation. He was on the streets daily,
protesting. However, he never demanded any specific action from government. His
protests came across as an end in themselves rather than a means to an end.
They paralysed Kampala City, making it hard to bring food in. This led to
increased prices, especially of food, in Kampala and therefore accentuated the
very problem Besigye claimed he wanted solved. Unfortunately, his protests
coincided with the Arab Spring. Without any specific demand for action from
government, the state saw his protests as copycats to precipitate an
unconstitutional change of government. This changed its calculus: it brought
out its big guns to crush his “rebellion.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Yet, if he genuinely saw protest as a means to advance the
cause of controlling inflation, he would have used them as a bargaining chip
for negotiations. Even if he did not want to meet Museveni personally, he could
have asked for talks with Bank of Uganda and the ministry of Finance. After
negotiations they would have produced a statement on the solution. Whatever the
symbolic value of such a gesture, it would have shown the world, but most
especially his supporters, that Besigye achieved something. Yet this basic part
of his struggle was totally absent from his calculations. His inability to see
value in negotiations exposes Besigye as inherently antidemocratic and only
interested in power for its own sake. Since then, he has remained on the
streets protesting for the right to protest. Sadly, Bobi Wine is walking this
path.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Another way to advance the cause of political reform is
through the courts; especially using constitutional petitions. As a journalist
and activist, I have been to the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court to
advance the cause of freedom and liberty with great success. We have caused the
annulment of the laws of false news and sedition and the first
anti-homosexuality act. We got a judgement that if anyone is challenging the
constitutionality of any law, then all prosecution under such law has to be
stayed until the disposal of the constitutional petition. This has made it
impossible for the state to prosecute opposition politicians since many of
these laws are being challenged in the Constitutional Court.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The third strategy is fighting to increase the share of
opposition MPs in parliament which has been shrinking since 2006 giving
Museveni more say and sway over the political and economic direction of the
country. Parliament in Uganda has enormous power over the making of laws, the
writing of the budget not to mention fighting corruption. If the opposition had
40% share of parliament, they could have blocked the amendment of the
constitution to remove term and age limits. Instead, Besigye, and now Bobi
Wine, have focused most of their resources on capturing the presidency.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It does not make strategic sense for a weak party in any
struggle military, political or economic to throw most of their resources at
the enemy’s most heavily fortified position. That is suicidal. You attack the
enemy at his weakest point where he pays the least attention. In our case, it
is local councils and parliament not the presidency. Hence, by increasing your
share of seats in parliament and local councils, you can create capacity, in
the long term, to assault the presidency with a good chance of success.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Finally, the opposition in Uganda should be open about
negotiating with government for political and economic reforms that they
consider dear. These negotiations can be specific to a particular reform or
broader, seeking a government of national unity where they can participate as
junior partners. Half a loaf, or even 20%, is better than nothing. In my many
unhappy encounters with opposition activists, I get the impression that their
principle is “all or none” either they get all that they want or stay
away. This is silly. They claim that working with Museveni only helps the
president consolidate his power. But even without them, he continues to hold
power. Sadly, in their obsessive desire to remove Museveni from power, they
have become blind to the chance to participate in government and influence some
decisions in their favor.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Negotiations demand that all parties give up something dear
in order to gain something important. Therefore, the outcome cannot be absolute
satisfaction for anyone but a balance of dissatisfaction. The real problem is
that the opposition see Museveni as a devil to destroy not as a partner to
negotiate with. So, they see negotiations as selling out; compromise as
capitulation. Consequently, they have become strategic captives of their
subjective feelings.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">*****<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">amwenda@independent.co.ug</p>Independent UGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00597910260410335839noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6321272880913128238.post-78906307621292780402022-08-31T09:19:00.002-07:002022-08-31T09:19:00.208-07:00In admiration of Nobert Mao<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.independent.co.ug/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Museveni_Mao.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="308" data-original-width="640" height="154" src="https://www.independent.co.ug/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Museveni_Mao.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p><b><i></i></b></p><blockquote><b><i>How this South Asian country is transiting from a stable
liberal democracy into a chaotic illiberal mobocracy</i></b></blockquote><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | The news from Sri Lanka
is intriguing and confounding both as politics and as economics. Let us begin
with its politics. Sri Lanka has, since independence from Britain in 1948, been
consistently a liberal-democracy. Only India has that record in South Asia. Elections
have always been held and are fairly free and fair. Control of government (the
president, prime minister and parliament) has consistently changed hands from
incumbent to opposition and back again. True some powerful individuals and
families have dominated the politics of Sri Lanka at certain times, but that is
the stuff of politics in many democracies.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Immediately after independence, most of Britain’s colonial
possessions succumbed to coups, one party or armed insurgent governments.
Except for a few small island nations in the Caribbean and Indian Ocean, only
Sri Lanka, India and Botswana have sustained liberal democratic institutions.
Singapore is another example but most analysts see it as a single party
authoritarian system dressed in multiparty garb. This experience has led me to
doubt the ability of liberal democracy to work as a turn-key project in any
country – which it has never been anyway.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Over the last few months, this successful liberal democracy
has been in political turmoil triggered by an economic crisis. Governments –
democratic or authoritarian, revolutionary or traditional/conservative – find
themselves in political trouble when confronted by economic crisis. The problem
with Sri Lanka is that after months demonstrating against scarcity of essential
goods and/or their soaring prices, protesters upped the ante. They invaded and
occupied the official residence of the president, and invaded and burned down
the private residence of the prime minister, forcing both to run to exile and
also resign. The army and police did little or nothing to defend the existing
constitutional order.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I have always believed that democracies have an inbuilt
mechanism of avoiding unconstitutional changes of government. This is
especially where they are consolidated i.e. governments have changed hands
between incumbents and the opposition severally. In such cases, the public have
confidence to uphold constitutionalism. In case of poor performance, voters can
wait and punish the leader at the next election. This is not the case in an
authoritarian system where elections are rigged and government doesn’t change.
In the latter case, the public can only use unconstitutional means to change
government when faced by a serious economic crisis.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The president of Sri Lanka who has just been deposed by
protesters, Gotabaya Rajapaska, was elected in 2019 by a landslide as an
opposition candidate, beating the incumbent, Maithripala Sirisena. True his
brother, Mahinda Rajapaska, had been president between 2005 and 2015. Mahinda
was defeated in the 2015 election by Sirisena, conceded and went home. It was
the failure of Sirisena that brought the Rajapaskas back to power ahead of a
popular U-turn. Gotabaya appointed Mahinda as his prime minister.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Economically, Sri Lanka again confounds us. Its per capita
income is $4,300 – three times higher than that of Uganda. One could argue that
per capita income disguises income inequalities. However, the measure for
income distribution is the Gini-coefficient. It measures inequality between
zero and one. Assume a country/economy with a population of ten people that
produces income of ten dollars per year. If each one of its ten citizens earns
one dollar, that is perfect equality (zero inequality). But if all the ten
dollars are earned by one person, that is one (perfect inequality). Sri Lanka’s
Gini coefficient is 0.39 – among the best in the world.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Since 2005, Sri Lanka seemed to do well. Its economy doubled
between 2005 and 2011. Poverty fell from 15% to 7.6%. Capitalisation on its
stock market quadrupled. Unemployment fell from 7 to 4%. The World Economic
Forum’s<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Global Competitiveness Report
placed Sri Lanka as 52nd most competitive economy out of 142 countries
surveyed. On social indicators, 99% of all the homes of Sri Lanka have electricity.
Then 93% have access to clean drinking water and 53% have access to piped water
at home. In 2016, the World Giving Index placed Sri Lanka at number five,
registering high levels of citizen contentment. Uganda just does not compare.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">With a road network of 100,000km of paved roads, it makes
Uganda’s 6,000km look a big joke. But Sri Lanka registered a lot of these gains
amidst a borrowing binge. Its budget deficit doubled during this period driven
by ambitious visions of modernisation. Its main foreign exchange earner has
been tourism. When COVID hit, tourism revenues dried out. And Uganda seems
headed in similar director if we do not tame our runaway public spending.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Why did Sri Lanka economy run bankrupt and its politics go
bonkers? Why did a fast-growing economy equally run out of money? And why
didn’t its democratic traditions make its citizens wait for the next election
to remove the government but instead resort to mob action? Why didn’t state
institutions like the police and the army find it necessary to protect the
existing constitutional order? Can anyone imagine what this precedent portends
for that country, now that mobs on the street have been given greenlight that
they don’t need elections to change government?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">There is one outcome I am sure about: things in Sri Lanka
are going to get a lot worse, not better. If that country is to improve, it
will take long for it to turnaround, and it will do so at a very slow grinding
pace. Whoever in the police and military allowed this mob takeover of
government will realise – much sooner than later – that whatever their
short-term calculations, they have placed their country on slippery slope of
mob rule from which it will be very difficult to withdraw. Once a mob has tested
power, it becomes very difficult to make them retreat from such actions.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Politicians are power maximising entrepreneurs. Knowing that
power comes from the mob, the next leaders of the country will find it hard to
do what is fiscally right. They will do what pleases the mob. Once that pattern
sets in, we are likely to see a besieged state where every government, subject
to mob pressure, panders to mob feelings and implements disastrous
redistributive policies. The right solutions out of the current economic crisis
cannot be easy fixes as the mob wants and will demand. So, the tenure of
politicians will be short because they will not be able to fulfill the mob’s
demands. Hence, every politician will seek to grab as much as possible before
they get kicked out. Loot will rule.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">****</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">amwenda@independent.co.ug<o:p></o:p></p>Independent UGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00597910260410335839noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6321272880913128238.post-20435612774700072592022-08-21T09:26:00.008-07:002022-08-26T09:28:08.882-07:00Raila: the making of a giant<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.independent.co.ug/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Raila-Odinga-.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="340" data-original-width="640" height="170" src="https://www.independent.co.ug/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Raila-Odinga-.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><b><i><blockquote>How this South Asian country is transiting from a stable
liberal democracy into a chaotic illiberal mobocracy</blockquote></i></b><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | The news from Sri Lanka
is intriguing and confounding both as politics and as economics. Let us begin
with its politics. Sri Lanka has, since independence from Britain in 1948, been
consistently a liberal-democracy. Only India has that record in South Asia. Elections
have always been held and are fairly free and fair. Control of government (the
president, prime minister and parliament) has consistently changed hands from
incumbent to opposition and back again. True some powerful individuals and
families have dominated the politics of Sri Lanka at certain times, but that is
the stuff of politics in many democracies.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Immediately after independence, most of Britain’s colonial
possessions succumbed to coups, one party or armed insurgent governments.
Except for a few small island nations in the Caribbean and Indian Ocean, only
Sri Lanka, India and Botswana have sustained liberal democratic institutions.
Singapore is another example but most analysts see it as a single party
authoritarian system dressed in multiparty garb. This experience has led me to
doubt the ability of liberal democracy to work as a turn-key project in any
country – which it has never been anyway.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Over the last few months, this successful liberal democracy
has been in political turmoil triggered by an economic crisis. Governments –
democratic or authoritarian, revolutionary or traditional/conservative – find
themselves in political trouble when confronted by economic crisis. The problem
with Sri Lanka is that after months demonstrating against scarcity of essential
goods and/or their soaring prices, protesters upped the ante. They invaded and
occupied the official residence of the president, and invaded and burned down
the private residence of the prime minister, forcing both to run to exile and
also resign. The army and police did little or nothing to defend the existing
constitutional order.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I have always believed that democracies have an inbuilt
mechanism of avoiding unconstitutional changes of government. This is
especially where they are consolidated i.e. governments have changed hands
between incumbents and the opposition severally. In such cases, the public have
confidence to uphold constitutionalism. In case of poor performance, voters can
wait and punish the leader at the next election. This is not the case in an
authoritarian system where elections are rigged and government doesn’t change.
In the latter case, the public can only use unconstitutional means to change
government when faced by a serious economic crisis.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The president of Sri Lanka who has just been deposed by
protesters, Gotabaya Rajapaska, was elected in 2019 by a landslide as an
opposition candidate, beating the incumbent, Maithripala Sirisena. True his
brother, Mahinda Rajapaska, had been president between 2005 and 2015. Mahinda
was defeated in the 2015 election by Sirisena, conceded and went home. It was
the failure of Sirisena that brought the Rajapaskas back to power ahead of a
popular U-turn. Gotabaya appointed Mahinda as his prime minister.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Economically, Sri Lanka again confounds us. Its per capita
income is $4,300 – three times higher than that of Uganda. One could argue that
per capita income disguises income inequalities. However, the measure for
income distribution is the Gini-coefficient. It measures inequality between
zero and one. Assume a country/economy with a population of ten people that
produces income of ten dollars per year. If each one of its ten citizens earns
one dollar, that is perfect equality (zero inequality). But if all the ten
dollars are earned by one person, that is one (perfect inequality). Sri Lanka’s
Gini coefficient is 0.39 – among the best in the world.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Since 2005, Sri Lanka seemed to do well. Its economy doubled
between 2005 and 2011. Poverty fell from 15% to 7.6%. Capitalisation on its
stock market quadrupled. Unemployment fell from 7 to 4%. The World Economic
Forum’s<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Global Competitiveness Report
placed Sri Lanka as 52nd most competitive economy out of 142 countries
surveyed. On social indicators, 99% of all the homes of Sri Lanka have electricity.
Then 93% have access to clean drinking water and 53% have access to piped water
at home. In 2016, the World Giving Index placed Sri Lanka at number five,
registering high levels of citizen contentment. Uganda just does not compare.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">With a road network of 100,000km of paved roads, it makes
Uganda’s 6,000km look a big joke. But Sri Lanka registered a lot of these gains
amidst a borrowing binge. Its budget deficit doubled during this period driven
by ambitious visions of modernisation. Its main foreign exchange earner has
been tourism. When COVID hit, tourism revenues dried out. And Uganda seems
headed in similar director if we do not tame our runaway public spending.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Why did Sri Lanka economy run bankrupt and its politics go
bonkers? Why did a fast-growing economy equally run out of money? And why
didn’t its democratic traditions make its citizens wait for the next election
to remove the government but instead resort to mob action? Why didn’t state
institutions like the police and the army find it necessary to protect the
existing constitutional order? Can anyone imagine what this precedent portends
for that country, now that mobs on the street have been given greenlight that
they don’t need elections to change government?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">There is one outcome I am sure about: things in Sri Lanka
are going to get a lot worse, not better. If that country is to improve, it
will take long for it to turnaround, and it will do so at a very slow grinding
pace. Whoever in the police and military allowed this mob takeover of
government will realise – much sooner than later – that whatever their
short-term calculations, they have placed their country on slippery slope of
mob rule from which it will be very difficult to withdraw. Once a mob has tested
power, it becomes very difficult to make them retreat from such actions.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Politicians are power maximising entrepreneurs. Knowing that
power comes from the mob, the next leaders of the country will find it hard to
do what is fiscally right. They will do what pleases the mob. Once that pattern
sets in, we are likely to see a besieged state where every government, subject
to mob pressure, panders to mob feelings and implements disastrous
redistributive policies. The right solutions out of the current economic crisis
cannot be easy fixes as the mob wants and will demand. So, the tenure of
politicians will be short because they will not be able to fulfill the mob’s
demands. Hence, every politician will seek to grab as much as possible before
they get kicked out. Loot will rule.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">****</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">amwenda@independent.co.ug</p>Independent UGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00597910260410335839noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6321272880913128238.post-71620547806442056972022-08-14T09:24:00.008-07:002022-08-26T09:25:45.985-07:00From Kerala with love<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.independent.co.ug/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/shinshiva.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="479" data-original-width="640" height="240" src="https://www.independent.co.ug/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/shinshiva.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><b><i><blockquote>How this South Asian country is transiting from a stable
liberal democracy into a chaotic illiberal mobocracy</blockquote></i></b><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | The news from Sri Lanka
is intriguing and confounding both as politics and as economics. Let us begin
with its politics. Sri Lanka has, since independence from Britain in 1948, been
consistently a liberal-democracy. Only India has that record in South Asia. Elections
have always been held and are fairly free and fair. Control of government (the
president, prime minister and parliament) has consistently changed hands from
incumbent to opposition and back again. True some powerful individuals and
families have dominated the politics of Sri Lanka at certain times, but that is
the stuff of politics in many democracies.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Immediately after independence, most of Britain’s colonial
possessions succumbed to coups, one party or armed insurgent governments.
Except for a few small island nations in the Caribbean and Indian Ocean, only
Sri Lanka, India and Botswana have sustained liberal democratic institutions.
Singapore is another example but most analysts see it as a single party
authoritarian system dressed in multiparty garb. This experience has led me to
doubt the ability of liberal democracy to work as a turn-key project in any
country – which it has never been anyway.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Over the last few months, this successful liberal democracy
has been in political turmoil triggered by an economic crisis. Governments –
democratic or authoritarian, revolutionary or traditional/conservative – find
themselves in political trouble when confronted by economic crisis. The problem
with Sri Lanka is that after months demonstrating against scarcity of essential
goods and/or their soaring prices, protesters upped the ante. They invaded and
occupied the official residence of the president, and invaded and burned down
the private residence of the prime minister, forcing both to run to exile and
also resign. The army and police did little or nothing to defend the existing
constitutional order.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I have always believed that democracies have an inbuilt
mechanism of avoiding unconstitutional changes of government. This is
especially where they are consolidated i.e. governments have changed hands
between incumbents and the opposition severally. In such cases, the public have
confidence to uphold constitutionalism. In case of poor performance, voters can
wait and punish the leader at the next election. This is not the case in an
authoritarian system where elections are rigged and government doesn’t change.
In the latter case, the public can only use unconstitutional means to change
government when faced by a serious economic crisis.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The president of Sri Lanka who has just been deposed by
protesters, Gotabaya Rajapaska, was elected in 2019 by a landslide as an
opposition candidate, beating the incumbent, Maithripala Sirisena. True his
brother, Mahinda Rajapaska, had been president between 2005 and 2015. Mahinda
was defeated in the 2015 election by Sirisena, conceded and went home. It was
the failure of Sirisena that brought the Rajapaskas back to power ahead of a
popular U-turn. Gotabaya appointed Mahinda as his prime minister.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Economically, Sri Lanka again confounds us. Its per capita
income is $4,300 – three times higher than that of Uganda. One could argue that
per capita income disguises income inequalities. However, the measure for
income distribution is the Gini-coefficient. It measures inequality between
zero and one. Assume a country/economy with a population of ten people that
produces income of ten dollars per year. If each one of its ten citizens earns
one dollar, that is perfect equality (zero inequality). But if all the ten
dollars are earned by one person, that is one (perfect inequality). Sri Lanka’s
Gini coefficient is 0.39 – among the best in the world.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Since 2005, Sri Lanka seemed to do well. Its economy doubled
between 2005 and 2011. Poverty fell from 15% to 7.6%. Capitalisation on its
stock market quadrupled. Unemployment fell from 7 to 4%. The World Economic
Forum’s<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Global Competitiveness Report
placed Sri Lanka as 52nd most competitive economy out of 142 countries
surveyed. On social indicators, 99% of all the homes of Sri Lanka have electricity.
Then 93% have access to clean drinking water and 53% have access to piped water
at home. In 2016, the World Giving Index placed Sri Lanka at number five,
registering high levels of citizen contentment. Uganda just does not compare.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">With a road network of 100,000km of paved roads, it makes
Uganda’s 6,000km look a big joke. But Sri Lanka registered a lot of these gains
amidst a borrowing binge. Its budget deficit doubled during this period driven
by ambitious visions of modernisation. Its main foreign exchange earner has
been tourism. When COVID hit, tourism revenues dried out. And Uganda seems
headed in similar director if we do not tame our runaway public spending.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Why did Sri Lanka economy run bankrupt and its politics go
bonkers? Why did a fast-growing economy equally run out of money? And why
didn’t its democratic traditions make its citizens wait for the next election
to remove the government but instead resort to mob action? Why didn’t state
institutions like the police and the army find it necessary to protect the
existing constitutional order? Can anyone imagine what this precedent portends
for that country, now that mobs on the street have been given greenlight that
they don’t need elections to change government?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">There is one outcome I am sure about: things in Sri Lanka
are going to get a lot worse, not better. If that country is to improve, it
will take long for it to turnaround, and it will do so at a very slow grinding
pace. Whoever in the police and military allowed this mob takeover of
government will realise – much sooner than later – that whatever their
short-term calculations, they have placed their country on slippery slope of
mob rule from which it will be very difficult to withdraw. Once a mob has tested
power, it becomes very difficult to make them retreat from such actions.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Politicians are power maximising entrepreneurs. Knowing that
power comes from the mob, the next leaders of the country will find it hard to
do what is fiscally right. They will do what pleases the mob. Once that pattern
sets in, we are likely to see a besieged state where every government, subject
to mob pressure, panders to mob feelings and implements disastrous
redistributive policies. The right solutions out of the current economic crisis
cannot be easy fixes as the mob wants and will demand. So, the tenure of
politicians will be short because they will not be able to fulfill the mob’s
demands. Hence, every politician will seek to grab as much as possible before
they get kicked out. Loot will rule.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">****</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">amwenda@independent.co.ug</p>Independent UGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00597910260410335839noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6321272880913128238.post-91426413507111331362022-08-08T09:21:00.007-07:002022-08-26T09:23:10.697-07:00Daily Monitor 30th birthday<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.independent.co.ug/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/monitor.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="320" data-original-width="640" height="160" src="https://www.independent.co.ug/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/monitor.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p><b><i></i></b></p><blockquote><b><i>How this South Asian country is transiting from a stable
liberal democracy into a chaotic illiberal mobocracy</i></b></blockquote><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | The news from Sri Lanka
is intriguing and confounding both as politics and as economics. Let us begin
with its politics. Sri Lanka has, since independence from Britain in 1948, been
consistently a liberal-democracy. Only India has that record in South Asia. Elections
have always been held and are fairly free and fair. Control of government (the
president, prime minister and parliament) has consistently changed hands from
incumbent to opposition and back again. True some powerful individuals and
families have dominated the politics of Sri Lanka at certain times, but that is
the stuff of politics in many democracies.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Immediately after independence, most of Britain’s colonial
possessions succumbed to coups, one party or armed insurgent governments.
Except for a few small island nations in the Caribbean and Indian Ocean, only
Sri Lanka, India and Botswana have sustained liberal democratic institutions.
Singapore is another example but most analysts see it as a single party
authoritarian system dressed in multiparty garb. This experience has led me to
doubt the ability of liberal democracy to work as a turn-key project in any
country – which it has never been anyway.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Over the last few months, this successful liberal democracy
has been in political turmoil triggered by an economic crisis. Governments –
democratic or authoritarian, revolutionary or traditional/conservative – find
themselves in political trouble when confronted by economic crisis. The problem
with Sri Lanka is that after months demonstrating against scarcity of essential
goods and/or their soaring prices, protesters upped the ante. They invaded and
occupied the official residence of the president, and invaded and burned down
the private residence of the prime minister, forcing both to run to exile and
also resign. The army and police did little or nothing to defend the existing
constitutional order.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I have always believed that democracies have an inbuilt
mechanism of avoiding unconstitutional changes of government. This is
especially where they are consolidated i.e. governments have changed hands
between incumbents and the opposition severally. In such cases, the public have
confidence to uphold constitutionalism. In case of poor performance, voters can
wait and punish the leader at the next election. This is not the case in an
authoritarian system where elections are rigged and government doesn’t change.
In the latter case, the public can only use unconstitutional means to change
government when faced by a serious economic crisis.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The president of Sri Lanka who has just been deposed by
protesters, Gotabaya Rajapaska, was elected in 2019 by a landslide as an
opposition candidate, beating the incumbent, Maithripala Sirisena. True his
brother, Mahinda Rajapaska, had been president between 2005 and 2015. Mahinda
was defeated in the 2015 election by Sirisena, conceded and went home. It was
the failure of Sirisena that brought the Rajapaskas back to power ahead of a
popular U-turn. Gotabaya appointed Mahinda as his prime minister.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Economically, Sri Lanka again confounds us. Its per capita
income is $4,300 – three times higher than that of Uganda. One could argue that
per capita income disguises income inequalities. However, the measure for
income distribution is the Gini-coefficient. It measures inequality between
zero and one. Assume a country/economy with a population of ten people that
produces income of ten dollars per year. If each one of its ten citizens earns
one dollar, that is perfect equality (zero inequality). But if all the ten
dollars are earned by one person, that is one (perfect inequality). Sri Lanka’s
Gini coefficient is 0.39 – among the best in the world.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Since 2005, Sri Lanka seemed to do well. Its economy doubled
between 2005 and 2011. Poverty fell from 15% to 7.6%. Capitalisation on its
stock market quadrupled. Unemployment fell from 7 to 4%. The World Economic
Forum’s<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Global Competitiveness Report
placed Sri Lanka as 52nd most competitive economy out of 142 countries
surveyed. On social indicators, 99% of all the homes of Sri Lanka have electricity.
Then 93% have access to clean drinking water and 53% have access to piped water
at home. In 2016, the World Giving Index placed Sri Lanka at number five,
registering high levels of citizen contentment. Uganda just does not compare.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">With a road network of 100,000km of paved roads, it makes
Uganda’s 6,000km look a big joke. But Sri Lanka registered a lot of these gains
amidst a borrowing binge. Its budget deficit doubled during this period driven
by ambitious visions of modernisation. Its main foreign exchange earner has
been tourism. When COVID hit, tourism revenues dried out. And Uganda seems
headed in similar director if we do not tame our runaway public spending.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Why did Sri Lanka economy run bankrupt and its politics go
bonkers? Why did a fast-growing economy equally run out of money? And why
didn’t its democratic traditions make its citizens wait for the next election
to remove the government but instead resort to mob action? Why didn’t state
institutions like the police and the army find it necessary to protect the
existing constitutional order? Can anyone imagine what this precedent portends
for that country, now that mobs on the street have been given greenlight that
they don’t need elections to change government?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">There is one outcome I am sure about: things in Sri Lanka
are going to get a lot worse, not better. If that country is to improve, it
will take long for it to turnaround, and it will do so at a very slow grinding
pace. Whoever in the police and military allowed this mob takeover of
government will realise – much sooner than later – that whatever their
short-term calculations, they have placed their country on slippery slope of
mob rule from which it will be very difficult to withdraw. Once a mob has tested
power, it becomes very difficult to make them retreat from such actions.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Politicians are power maximising entrepreneurs. Knowing that
power comes from the mob, the next leaders of the country will find it hard to
do what is fiscally right. They will do what pleases the mob. Once that pattern
sets in, we are likely to see a besieged state where every government, subject
to mob pressure, panders to mob feelings and implements disastrous
redistributive policies. The right solutions out of the current economic crisis
cannot be easy fixes as the mob wants and will demand. So, the tenure of
politicians will be short because they will not be able to fulfill the mob’s
demands. Hence, every politician will seek to grab as much as possible before
they get kicked out. Loot will rule.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">****<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">amwenda@independent.co.ug</p>Independent UGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00597910260410335839noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6321272880913128238.post-43170168799267200412022-07-23T09:17:00.009-07:002022-08-26T09:19:17.040-07:00Uganda’s fictitious disagreements<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.independent.co.ug/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/middle-income.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="318" data-original-width="640" height="159" src="https://www.independent.co.ug/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/middle-income.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><blockquote><i><b>How this South Asian country is transiting from a stable
liberal democracy into a chaotic illiberal mobocracy</b></i></blockquote><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | The news from Sri Lanka
is intriguing and confounding both as politics and as economics. Let us begin
with its politics. Sri Lanka has, since independence from Britain in 1948, been
consistently a liberal-democracy. Only India has that record in South Asia. Elections
have always been held and are fairly free and fair. Control of government (the
president, prime minister and parliament) has consistently changed hands from
incumbent to opposition and back again. True some powerful individuals and
families have dominated the politics of Sri Lanka at certain times, but that is
the stuff of politics in many democracies.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Immediately after independence, most of Britain’s colonial
possessions succumbed to coups, one party or armed insurgent governments.
Except for a few small island nations in the Caribbean and Indian Ocean, only
Sri Lanka, India and Botswana have sustained liberal democratic institutions.
Singapore is another example but most analysts see it as a single party
authoritarian system dressed in multiparty garb. This experience has led me to
doubt the ability of liberal democracy to work as a turn-key project in any
country – which it has never been anyway.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Over the last few months, this successful liberal democracy
has been in political turmoil triggered by an economic crisis. Governments –
democratic or authoritarian, revolutionary or traditional/conservative – find
themselves in political trouble when confronted by economic crisis. The problem
with Sri Lanka is that after months demonstrating against scarcity of essential
goods and/or their soaring prices, protesters upped the ante. They invaded and
occupied the official residence of the president, and invaded and burned down
the private residence of the prime minister, forcing both to run to exile and
also resign. The army and police did little or nothing to defend the existing
constitutional order.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I have always believed that democracies have an inbuilt
mechanism of avoiding unconstitutional changes of government. This is
especially where they are consolidated i.e. governments have changed hands
between incumbents and the opposition severally. In such cases, the public have
confidence to uphold constitutionalism. In case of poor performance, voters can
wait and punish the leader at the next election. This is not the case in an
authoritarian system where elections are rigged and government doesn’t change.
In the latter case, the public can only use unconstitutional means to change
government when faced by a serious economic crisis.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The president of Sri Lanka who has just been deposed by
protesters, Gotabaya Rajapaska, was elected in 2019 by a landslide as an
opposition candidate, beating the incumbent, Maithripala Sirisena. True his
brother, Mahinda Rajapaska, had been president between 2005 and 2015. Mahinda
was defeated in the 2015 election by Sirisena, conceded and went home. It was
the failure of Sirisena that brought the Rajapaskas back to power ahead of a
popular U-turn. Gotabaya appointed Mahinda as his prime minister.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Economically, Sri Lanka again confounds us. Its per capita
income is $4,300 – three times higher than that of Uganda. One could argue that
per capita income disguises income inequalities. However, the measure for
income distribution is the Gini-coefficient. It measures inequality between
zero and one. Assume a country/economy with a population of ten people that
produces income of ten dollars per year. If each one of its ten citizens earns
one dollar, that is perfect equality (zero inequality). But if all the ten
dollars are earned by one person, that is one (perfect inequality). Sri Lanka’s
Gini coefficient is 0.39 – among the best in the world.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Since 2005, Sri Lanka seemed to do well. Its economy doubled
between 2005 and 2011. Poverty fell from 15% to 7.6%. Capitalisation on its
stock market quadrupled. Unemployment fell from 7 to 4%. The World Economic
Forum’s<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Global Competitiveness Report
placed Sri Lanka as 52nd most competitive economy out of 142 countries
surveyed. On social indicators, 99% of all the homes of Sri Lanka have electricity.
Then 93% have access to clean drinking water and 53% have access to piped water
at home. In 2016, the World Giving Index placed Sri Lanka at number five,
registering high levels of citizen contentment. Uganda just does not compare.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">With a road network of 100,000km of paved roads, it makes
Uganda’s 6,000km look a big joke. But Sri Lanka registered a lot of these gains
amidst a borrowing binge. Its budget deficit doubled during this period driven
by ambitious visions of modernisation. Its main foreign exchange earner has
been tourism. When COVID hit, tourism revenues dried out. And Uganda seems
headed in similar director if we do not tame our runaway public spending.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Why did Sri Lanka economy run bankrupt and its politics go
bonkers? Why did a fast-growing economy equally run out of money? And why
didn’t its democratic traditions make its citizens wait for the next election
to remove the government but instead resort to mob action? Why didn’t state
institutions like the police and the army find it necessary to protect the
existing constitutional order? Can anyone imagine what this precedent portends
for that country, now that mobs on the street have been given greenlight that
they don’t need elections to change government?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">There is one outcome I am sure about: things in Sri Lanka
are going to get a lot worse, not better. If that country is to improve, it
will take long for it to turnaround, and it will do so at a very slow grinding
pace. Whoever in the police and military allowed this mob takeover of
government will realise – much sooner than later – that whatever their
short-term calculations, they have placed their country on slippery slope of
mob rule from which it will be very difficult to withdraw. Once a mob has tested
power, it becomes very difficult to make them retreat from such actions.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Politicians are power maximising entrepreneurs. Knowing that
power comes from the mob, the next leaders of the country will find it hard to
do what is fiscally right. They will do what pleases the mob. Once that pattern
sets in, we are likely to see a besieged state where every government, subject
to mob pressure, panders to mob feelings and implements disastrous
redistributive policies. The right solutions out of the current economic crisis
cannot be easy fixes as the mob wants and will demand. So, the tenure of
politicians will be short because they will not be able to fulfill the mob’s
demands. Hence, every politician will seek to grab as much as possible before
they get kicked out. Loot will rule.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">****<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">amwenda@independent.co.ug<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>Independent UGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00597910260410335839noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6321272880913128238.post-38484693109406703382022-07-17T09:12:00.012-07:002022-08-26T09:26:07.508-07:00Mob rule in Sri Lanka<p><i></i></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://www.independent.co.ug/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Sri-Lanka-1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="314" data-original-width="600" height="167" src="https://www.independent.co.ug/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Sri-Lanka-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></i></div><i><br />How this South Asian country is transiting from a stable
liberal democracy into a chaotic illiberal mobocracy<p></p></i><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | The news from Sri Lanka
is intriguing and confounding both as politics and as economics. Let us begin
with its politics. Sri Lanka has, since independence from Britain in 1948, been
consistently a liberal-democracy. Only India has that record in South Asia. Elections
have always been held and are fairly free and fair. Control of government (the
president, prime minister and parliament) has consistently changed hands from
incumbent to opposition and back again. True some powerful individuals and
families have dominated the politics of Sri Lanka at certain times, but that is
the stuff of politics in many democracies.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Immediately after independence, most of Britain’s colonial
possessions succumbed to coups, one party or armed insurgent governments.
Except for a few small island nations in the Caribbean and Indian Ocean, only
Sri Lanka, India and Botswana have sustained liberal democratic institutions.
Singapore is another example but most analysts see it as a single party
authoritarian system dressed in multiparty garb. This experience has led me to
doubt the ability of liberal democracy to work as a turn-key project in any
country – which it has never been anyway.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Over the last few months, this successful liberal democracy
has been in political turmoil triggered by an economic crisis. Governments –
democratic or authoritarian, revolutionary or traditional/conservative – find
themselves in political trouble when confronted by economic crisis. The problem
with Sri Lanka is that after months demonstrating against scarcity of essential
goods and/or their soaring prices, protesters upped the ante. They invaded and
occupied the official residence of the president, and invaded and burned down
the private residence of the prime minister, forcing both to run to exile and
also resign. The army and police did little or nothing to defend the existing
constitutional order.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I have always believed that democracies have an inbuilt
mechanism of avoiding unconstitutional changes of government. This is
especially where they are consolidated i.e. governments have changed hands
between incumbents and the opposition severally. In such cases, the public have
confidence to uphold constitutionalism. In case of poor performance, voters can
wait and punish the leader at the next election. This is not the case in an
authoritarian system where elections are rigged and government doesn’t change.
In the latter case, the public can only use unconstitutional means to change
government when faced by a serious economic crisis.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The president of Sri Lanka who has just been deposed by
protesters, Gotabaya Rajapaska, was elected in 2019 by a landslide as an
opposition candidate, beating the incumbent, Maithripala Sirisena. True his
brother, Mahinda Rajapaska, had been president between 2005 and 2015. Mahinda
was defeated in the 2015 election by Sirisena, conceded and went home. It was
the failure of Sirisena that brought the Rajapaskas back to power ahead of a
popular U-turn. Gotabaya appointed Mahinda as his prime minister.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Economically, Sri Lanka again confounds us. Its per capita
income is $4,300 – three times higher than that of Uganda. One could argue that
per capita income disguises income inequalities. However, the measure for
income distribution is the Gini-coefficient. It measures inequality between
zero and one. Assume a country/economy with a population of ten people that
produces income of ten dollars per year. If each one of its ten citizens earns
one dollar, that is perfect equality (zero inequality). But if all the ten
dollars are earned by one person, that is one (perfect inequality). Sri Lanka’s
Gini coefficient is 0.39 – among the best in the world.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Since 2005, Sri Lanka seemed to do well. Its economy doubled
between 2005 and 2011. Poverty fell from 15% to 7.6%. Capitalisation on its
stock market quadrupled. Unemployment fell from 7 to 4%. The World Economic
Forum’s<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Global Competitiveness Report
placed Sri Lanka as 52nd most competitive economy out of 142 countries
surveyed. On social indicators, 99% of all the homes of Sri Lanka have electricity.
Then 93% have access to clean drinking water and 53% have access to piped water
at home. In 2016, the World Giving Index placed Sri Lanka at number five,
registering high levels of citizen contentment. Uganda just does not compare.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">With a road network of 100,000km of paved roads, it makes
Uganda’s 6,000km look a big joke. But Sri Lanka registered a lot of these gains
amidst a borrowing binge. Its budget deficit doubled during this period driven
by ambitious visions of modernisation. Its main foreign exchange earner has
been tourism. When COVID hit, tourism revenues dried out. And Uganda seems
headed in similar director if we do not tame our runaway public spending.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Why did Sri Lanka economy run bankrupt and its politics go
bonkers? Why did a fast-growing economy equally run out of money? And why
didn’t its democratic traditions make its citizens wait for the next election
to remove the government but instead resort to mob action? Why didn’t state
institutions like the police and the army find it necessary to protect the
existing constitutional order? Can anyone imagine what this precedent portends
for that country, now that mobs on the street have been given greenlight that
they don’t need elections to change government?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">There is one outcome I am sure about: things in Sri Lanka
are going to get a lot worse, not better. If that country is to improve, it
will take long for it to turnaround, and it will do so at a very slow grinding
pace. Whoever in the police and military allowed this mob takeover of
government will realise – much sooner than later – that whatever their
short-term calculations, they have placed their country on slippery slope of
mob rule from which it will be very difficult to withdraw. Once a mob has tested
power, it becomes very difficult to make them retreat from such actions.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Politicians are power maximising entrepreneurs. Knowing that
power comes from the mob, the next leaders of the country will find it hard to
do what is fiscally right. They will do what pleases the mob. Once that pattern
sets in, we are likely to see a besieged state where every government, subject
to mob pressure, panders to mob feelings and implements disastrous
redistributive policies. The right solutions out of the current economic crisis
cannot be easy fixes as the mob wants and will demand. So, the tenure of
politicians will be short because they will not be able to fulfill the mob’s
demands. Hence, every politician will seek to grab as much as possible before
they get kicked out. Loot will rule.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>****</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">amwenda@independent.co.ug<o:p></o:p></p>Independent UGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00597910260410335839noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6321272880913128238.post-29732131827621575482022-07-09T01:23:00.010-07:002022-08-26T09:29:01.682-07:00Uganda’s biggest handicap<p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://www.independent.co.ug/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Total-training-welders.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="427" data-original-width="640" height="214" src="https://www.independent.co.ug/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Total-training-welders.jpg" width="320" /></a></b></div><b><i>How low levels of skill impact our nation’s ambitions
in government, private sector and our homes</i></b><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | </b>A friend has
lived in America for the last 15 years, having left the country in her early
twenties. Before, during and after her graduate studies, she worked in private
companies in America and international organisations around the world but
mostly in Washington DC. Thanks to COVID, she has been able to come live and
work from Kampala even though her office is in DC, via zoom. But it has also
been a tough period of adjustment for her. Most of the people she has had to
work with have frustrated her to exhaustion.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">She fired her first housekeeper within a month because she
was slow and incompetent. She is now on her third. Her personal assistant was
the same and now she in on a fourth and still dissatisfied. She hired someone
to redesign her garden, who took her money, did a shoddy job and then
disappeared. The second gardener delivered materials, did little work and
disappeared on the first payment. The third gardener she has now engaged often
does not pick her calls, makes appointments but shows up late and never meets
his commitments as promised. The plumbers, electricians and masons she has
called to fix the myriad problems left by her contractor in her house have been
just as frustrating. The only person she is satisfied with is her driver who
keeps time and drives well.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">My friend has been under constant frustration because for
most of her time as an adult, and all her working life, she has lived and
worked in development countries. These countries have high levels of human
capital. And human capital is much more than years spent at school to acquire
formal skills. It also involves experience, buttressed by pressure of the
environment which leads to the development of values, attitudes and mentalities
that foster hard work, passion to achieve set objectives all leading to high levels
of labour productivity. This is partly because labour in rich countries is
expensive. Therefore, companies and organisations need one person to produce
more and more (high levels of marginal productivity of labour i.e. high output
per extra unit of labour input).<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">From the beginning I advised my friend to be tolerant and
patient with the people she was working with. I told her that Uganda has low
levels of human skill even in mundane tasks. And because we have a very young
population (the median age is 16 years), we do not have a large number of
people with formal skills backed by years of experience to do jobs well.
Working with Ugandans requires a lot patience to train them to gain the
competences you seek.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">With time, and under rigorous and relentless pressure, many
people improve their skills, attitudes and values. They begin to honour
commitments, keep time, work hard and not invent excuses to explain their
failures. They seek perfection in what they do.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Initially, my friend would retort to my advice by saying I have
become complacent. Once, she said she was not surprised I am no longer as
critic of President Yoweri Museveni as I used to be. “You have become very
Ugandan,” she once told me, “Now you accept mediocrity and then rationalise
it.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I told her that I have grown older and more experienced and
reflective. I have run companies and learnt from my mistakes. I told her a
story of one of my staff whose competences she admires. Initially, I threatened
to fire him eleven times. He was saved by others among my senior management who
kept asking me to give him a second chance. It turned into eleven chances. When
I see him doing an excellent job today, I wonder how much we would have lost
had I had my way.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In his 1996 manifesto, which I believe is the best Museveni
ever wrote, the president deals with his problem. He says that a leader in our
context suffers the disadvantage of dealing with inexperienced staff. He/she
has, therefore, to adjust his ambitions to be consistent with the realities.
Working closely with President Paul Kagame of Rwanda sunk this message home. He
has big dreams for Rwanda. But he is constantly frustrated by the inability of
his staff to deliver even small and obvious things. There is a famous video
clip where him and I clash on this point; he expressing his frustrations and me
saying he is being unfair to his staff.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It is here that I find Ugandan intellectuals (and African
intellectuals) seriously limited in their analysis of our problems. This is
especially intriguing because what I am saying is a reality we all live in and
suffer daily. We cannot change our human capital overnight. It takes years or
even generations to train highly skilled and experienced staff. And when such a
person in government or a private company gains high levels of competence,
international development organisations (World Bank, IMF, ADB, UNDP etc.) or
multinational corporations snatch him/her. Why? Because the government of a
poor country just cannot compete with these organisations and corporations in
both prestige and salaries.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Ugandan journalists are most vocal in criticising government
for the incompetence of its police, teachers, medical workers, name it. But
read any newspaper in Uganda including this, <i>The Independent</i>. It is
difficult to find a single sentence without a grammatical or factual error,
spelling or punctuation mistake, etc. Watch any television newscast and a
similar experience stares you in the eye. Then listen to or watch our most
loved radio and television shows. The host and panelists make little effort to
be factually informed and barely add any meaningful or novel intellectual
insight into the issue.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I always tell my fellow journalists to avoid the holier than
thou attitude. They accuse me of whataboutism. I have written a column on this
issue of whataboutism before. Since most of our journalists are nominally
Christian, I tell them the statement by Jesus Christ in Chapter Seven verse One
in the book of Mathew. He asked why one would seek to remove a speck from a
friend’s eye when they have a log in their own? The point is that the
weaknesses we see in the state do not originate from its disinterest in serving
the citizens well – that would be a small part. The bigger issue is that our
country has low levels of human capital. Most people lack skills, experience,
values, attitudes and mentalities to do a good job.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">****</p><p></p>Independent UGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00597910260410335839noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6321272880913128238.post-11006347909370170052022-07-02T05:12:00.007-07:002022-08-26T09:30:23.660-07:00Apartheid at Uganda’s immigration<p><b></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://www.independent.co.ug/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/uganda-immigration1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="380" data-original-width="640" height="190" src="https://www.independent.co.ug/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/uganda-immigration1.jpg" width="320" /></a></b></div><b><i>Inside the discrimination, humiliation and
mistreatment of Ugandans of Kinyarwanda culture</i></b><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M MWENDA |</b> By And so it
was that while going through the Ugandan section of my library this week, I
picked a copy of President Yoweri Museveni’s autobiography,<b><i> Sowing
the Mustard Seed; the Struggle for Freedom and Democracy in Uganda</i></b>.
Chapter Eleven of the revised edition deals with Rwanda and Congo. Museveni
says he recruited Banyarwanda into the struggle against Idi Amin. But when he
tried to integrate them into the national army, and I quote, “UPC launched a
campaign against them, insisting they should not be integrated into the UNLA.
Why?” Because they came originally from Rwanda. However, these boys and girls
had stayed here (Uganda) for over 20 years, indeed some of them were born
here.”<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The president says his daughter (I suspect Patience Museveni
Rwabwogo) went to the USA to study for only three years and was recruited into
the USA army. Yet, in Uganda and I quote again, “one of the priorities of the
actors was to exclude their fellow Africans under the slogan of “sovereignty”
and “citizenship”… Thus (Fred) Rwigyema, (Paul) Kagame and others could neither
be allowed in Monduli or in Jinja senior NCO course…”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As an African who has travelled extensively in Western
countries that call themselves liberal-democratic and therefore humane, I have
witnessed and experienced some of the worst levels of racist persecution of
people from Africa – black and Arab, but not white. One only needs to go to any
Western embassy in Kampala to apply for a visa. While they claim the right to
freedom of movement, they place barriers to international travel that makes one
sick to the stomach. Their own visa application papers clearly state that you
are considered trying to immigrate into their countries forever, the burden of
proof that you intend to return lies on you.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I was not very conscious of my skin color and its
implications before I began to travel and study in the Western countries. In
these so-called liberal democracies, my racial consciousness was ruthlessly
imposed on me. At every twist and turn of my interaction with their
institutions, especially immigration officials, I was a suspected offender
until I proved myself otherwise. I became conscious that in spite of their
claims to liberalism and democracy, Western countries are institutionally
racist. They have built an apartheid global order where black people are
treated as second class global citizens. Like all colonial-apartheid systems,
they have left some space for a few black people (who suck up to them) to rise
through the system and use them to claim colour-blindness while the vast
majority are pressed under their feet.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Thus, when Museveni defends the right of Banyarwanda (who
have lived in Uganda for 20 years) to equal treatment, he is singing sweet
music to my ears. Yet the treatment of Banyarwanda, even those whose parents
and grandparents were born in Uganda, is not any different from the one he
criticises. I receive tens of Banyarwanda every single day pleading to help
them get Ugandan passports. In nearly all these cases, these are Banyarwanda of
Ugandan descent, their parents and grandparents having been born in Uganda.
Many have never been to Rwanda and cannot even speak Kinyarwanda. They only speak
Rutoro, English, Runyankore or Luganda and have no connection or attachment to
Rwanda.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Yet Ugandan immigration officials subject them to
humiliating treatment under tough interrogation when they mention they are
Banyarwanda by tribe. Immediately these officials believe these people
descended from Rwanda unless they prove themselves otherwise. They are asked
about their ancestors going back to 1926. Many of these kids and their parents
were born and raised in Uganda, many are middleclass people in Kampala. How
many non-Banyarwanda Ugandans can trace their ancestry to that period?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Innocent Kagame is only 16 years. Him, his brother and
sister were born in Uganda to Banyarwanda parents. None of them can speak
Kinyarwanda, only English and Luganda. Their father abandoned them. Their
mother is an ordinary woman and cannot trace the ancestry of her grandparents
and great grandparents to 1926 because her parents died when she was young. I
know these kids well because I have been helping support them.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Innocent got a scholarship to go study in Germany, an
opportunity of a lifetime. He needed a passport to go study but he had to prove
that his ancestors were in Uganda in 1926. Imagine. I got his father to come
from Mityana to immigration in Kampala to help his son get a passport. He
speaks fluent Rutoro, Luganda, Kinyarwanda and Runyankore. He has never been to
Rwanda. He says he was born in Gomba, his father was born in Masaka and that
his father told him his grandfather was born in Ntungamo. Nervous before tough immigration
officials, he could not “prove” to them that his great grandfather was born in
Ntungamo before 1926. Who can?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Ugandan immigration officials denied Innocent a passport and
thereby his education opportunity. What would Uganda lose if this kid was given
its passport? They insist he applies to be naturalised, but he has no evidence
his ancestors are from Rwanda. So, they have declared him stateless. Very many
Banyarwanda kids are claiming to be Banyankore, Baganda or otherwise because to
be a Munyarwanda by tribe means you have to prove you are not from Rwanda the
country. I stopped Innocent from claiming to be a Muganda since he speaks
Luganda fluently, and I may have been wrong. This is the most depressing part
of Museveni’s Uganda as he writes criticising his predecessors of practicing
what his government is doing.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Meanwhile, there are many Batooro, Banyankore, Basamia,
Acholi, Kakwa, Teso, Karimojong, etc. who come from border areas. Their
relatives straddle the borders into Kenya, DRC, Tanzania and South Sudan. They
are never subjected to this humiliating treatment. Why Banyarwanda? In the
1949, 1959 and 1969 census, Banyarwanda were the 5th largest tribe in Uganda.
Because of discrimination, some of them re-named themselves Bafumbira and are
willing to kill anyone that calls them Banyarwanda. Yet Kisoro was part of the
precolonial state of Rwanda. When the colonialists arbitrarily drew borders,
those who fell in the modern state of Uganda in Ntungamo have created a new
tribe, Abavandimwe, to disassociate themselves from the country called Rwanda.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Back to Museveni and his claims to Pan Africanism and East
African integration. If the problem of Banyarwanda in 1979 was backward UPC
officials, using claims of “sovereignty” and “citizenship”, what is the problem
in 2022, when he has been in power for 36 years?</p>Independent UGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00597910260410335839noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6321272880913128238.post-20916865340809367732022-06-25T05:11:00.012-07:002022-08-26T09:30:37.966-07:00On the teachers’ strike<p><b></b></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.independent.co.ug/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/back-to-school-1.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="425" data-original-width="640" height="213" src="https://www.independent.co.ug/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/back-to-school-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #202021; font-family: Roboto; font-size: 12px; font-style: italic; font-weight: 700; text-align: left;">Teacher on blackboard. PHOTO PEAS (Promoting Equality in African Schools)</span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b></b></div><b><i>How government may have opened a Pandora’s box by
creating huge salary disparities among its employees</i></b><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA |</b> There seems
to be haphazardness in the government of Uganda that is hard to fathom. One
case in point is the way they have caused a strike among arts teachers in
primary and secondary schools. One day, the government woke up and increased
the salaries of science teachers with diplomas and working in government
schools from (between) Shs 700,000 and Shs 900,000 to Shs3million. Then it
increased salaries of teachers with degrees from (between) Shs1million and
Shs1.4million to Shs4million. In each of these cases, salaries are increased
fourfold. I find this strange.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">What explains this excessive salary increases? It is rare
for companies and organisations – leave alone government – to quadruple
salaries across the board and do so overnight. Such a windfall is not
even good for the person receiving it – it can turn the lives of many up-side
down as they try to adjust to radically transformed lifestyle overnight.
Second, there is no evidence that paying science teachers better improves the
quality of teaching or even learning. So, what is the main objective of these
salary hikes? Third, it creates an apartheid system where some teachers (those
teaching science subjects) earn four times more than those teaching arts
subjects but with the same qualifications.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It is no wonder that arts teachers have gone on strike
asking for similar pay. The arts teachers may not sustain the strike for long
if government sticks to its guns, insisting they go back to teach or will be
considered to have abdicated their duties. Many may be forced by circumstances
to return and teach without a salary increase. But they will be demoralised and
demotivated. The consequence of this could be that they reduce their quality of
teaching. Thus, while government is unlikely to improve, the quality of science
education, it will degrade the quality of arts education.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Why did government create such a huge disparity in salaries
between arts and science teachers with similar qualifications? One can
understand if the difference is 10 to 20%. But a difference of 300% and more is
quite staggering. Did anyone consider the psychological effect of such pay
disparities among teachers with similar qualifications in the same school?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Now government is caught in a catch 22 situation. It cannot
reverse the salary hike for science teachers because it has created all these
wild expectations. Should it back-peddle and cut down the proposed salary hikes
for science teachers, they will be demoralised and demotivated. If it keeps
them, it will demoralise and demotivate arts teachers. The best solution would
be to create some degree of salary parity by hiking the salaries of arts
teachers. But this would create even worse budgetary problems.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Government has about 250,000 teachers on its payroll.
Assuming the average salary is going to be Shs3.5million (the mean between
Shs3million and Shs4million), there is an average increment of roughly
Shs2.8million per teacher. That means government would have to increase
teachers’ salaries by an extra Shs7.5 trillion. Where does government expect to
get this money from? Assuming it increased teachers’ salaries, this would lead
to contagion.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Immediately medical workers will demand a salary hike,
university lectures will follow suit, policemen, the army and prison,
prosecutors and state attorneys, road workers, civil servants etc. – everyone
will form a union to demand wage parity and fairness. And who would blame them?
Did someone consider these likely consequences? Perhaps government has done
this so many times for medical workers, judicial officers, MPs and it thinks it
can always get away with it. But there is always a tipping point.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The major problem here is that government of Uganda has a
very poor and opportunistic way of increasing salaries. This is what has
created despondency in the public sector. One day, government woke up and
increased salaries of medical workers, especially doctors, by about 300%. It
did the same for judges and then top civil service officials, some of whose
salaries went up by 500%. Yet the prudent way to enhance people’s salaries
should be phased over time. For instance, government can decide that every year
there will be automatic salary increases of all public sector workers to
accommodate the cost of inflation.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The second step would be for government to project, like it
had done for lectures at public universities, a 20% real increase in public
sector wages every two years for a specific period of time – say ten years.
That would double wages over that period, which is prudent and does not create
wild wage windfalls that have sudden and destabilising psychological and
lifestyle changes. This would give hope to public sector employees
without creating havoc to the budget. And government should avoid trying to
create special categories in the public sector who are more deserving. This
kind of discrimination will create envy and malice among and between people of
similar qualifications working in the same place. The conflicts resulting from
such can undermine the quality of work.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Take the example of current crisis of teachers’ salaries.
Imagine a head of school of a primary school who is an arts teacher earning
Shs900,000. All of a sudden, his science teacher, a subordinate, earns
Shs3million. What will be the impact of this on their work relationship? One
does not need to have studied industrial psychology to tell that such a situation
is likely to cause conflicts among teachers in the same school. And what is
likely to be the effect of such envy and malice and conflict on the students?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Finally, about 40% of students in primary schools and over
60% of students in secondary schools, study in private schools. The total
number of teachers in private schools is about 350,000. Very few private
schools in Uganda can afford these outrageous salaries. What is going to be the
effect of such huge salary disparities on private schools who are vital for our
education system? And these salary increases are coming after COVID-19 which
left private schools with huge losses resulting from two years of no revenue
and high interest-bearing loans from banks.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Government in Uganda has little consideration of the
contribution made by private education providers in the country. In fact, the
essence of private schools has been to shift pressure from public schools in
order to make universal primary and secondary education affordable by
government. Without private schools, the government’s education bill would more
than double. Private education is therefore a subsidy parents give government.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">*****<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i>amwenda@independent.co.ug</i></p>Independent UGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00597910260410335839noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6321272880913128238.post-40056359502546395502022-06-18T02:57:00.008-07:002022-08-26T09:32:33.784-07:00Aiding the enemy Part 2<p><b></b></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.independent.co.ug/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/putin-and-Xi.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="426" data-original-width="640" height="213" src="https://www.independent.co.ug/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/putin-and-Xi.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #202021; font-family: Roboto; font-size: 12px; font-style: italic; font-weight: 700; text-align: left;">The China factor that US has to constantly consider. Russia’s Putin (left) and Xi</span></td></tr></tbody></table><b><i>America’s
opportunities and main challenge as it seeks to contain China from dominating
Asia</i></b><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">THE LAST
WORD | ANDREW M MWENDA | In the April
17th column (see: “Aiding the enemy: How US involvement in the Russia-Ukraine
conflict is helping the rise of China to surpass America as the world’s leading
power”, I argued that America’s core interest lies in Asia, not Europe and that
Washington needs to be thinking more about how to contain China, not about
fighting Russia in Ukraine.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Many readers
told me the column was incomplete; that I did not explain the opportunities for
America in Asia.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Washington
can contain China because it is strategically better located. China has 14
neighbours on land, eight on sea. It has territorial disputes with some of
them. Four of them (India, Pakistan Russia and North Korea) are nuclear armed
and some of them, like Japan, can acquire nuclear weapons at very short notice.
Some are potential failed states (Pakistan and North Korea) while some are
powerful nations (Russia, Indonesia, Philippines, India and Japan – world’s 3rd
largest economy).</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Now compare
this with America’s strategic position: no great powers nearby, no nuclear
powers in the neighbourhood, and only two neighbours who share a border with it
(Canada and Mexico) both of whom have very good relations with America.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">So, anyone
looking at a map would see that there is a lot of potential for Washington to
build a balancing coalition in East Asia. It also means that if China seeks
hegemony in East Asia, it would not find it easy.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">As China’s
power grows, as it acquires military capabilities that threaten its neighbours
and as it begins to throw its weight around, its neighbours will seek to
balance against it.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">They could
seek neutrality or to bandwagon with China. But this would mean accepting a
position of permanent subordination and trusting in China’s indefinite
benevolence. So, as long as opportunities to ally are available, we should
expect balancing as the most likely option.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">That is what
is happening today. There is increasing strategic cooperation between the USA
and India. America has restored military-to-military ties with Indonesia. The
Philippines has allowed USA to use its military bases for the first time in 25
years. Washington has backed South Korea in its disputes with North Korea. It
has sided with Japan over the Senkuku islands.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Therefore,
China’s efforts to establish hegemony in East Asia will be resisted by the USA
with the help of China’s neighbours, an advantage China does not have in the
Western Hemisphere.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">But there
remain features in America’s balancing coalitions that are worrisome,
suggesting that managing the alliances will be difficult. The first is the
problem of collective action that bedevils all alliances. All countries in the
alliance must share a common interest in containing China. But all have the
incentive to buck-pass the work of containing China by letting others bear the
burden. This leads alliance members to posture at each other, bluffing and
bargaining. So alliance cohesion is very difficult.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Secondly the
alliance network in Asia covers a huge territory. The Cold War NATO-coalition
covered a short geographical distance – from Paris to Bonn is 400km.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But New Delhi and Taiwan are 4,800km apart,
Canberra to Taiwan is 7,200km, Tokyo to Singapore is over 4,200km. And some
alliance members are separated from each other by large bodies of water. This
means that pressure or an attack on one may not be felt as a direct threat by
the other.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Assuming
China attacked Taiwan; how would Australia or India feel and would they feel
compelled to respond? This gives China an opportunity to play a divide and
dominate strategy by making it hard for the different members of the coalition
to aid one another in crisis.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The third
problem is that the security environment in Asia, unlike in NATO, is not well
institutionalised. Different countries in Asia don’t agree on the need for
strong institutions. And few countries in Asia have commitments to each other.
Instead they have mutual security treaties with the USA. And there are
historical resentments among Asian countries that make it difficult to sustain
a solid and workable coalition.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Also,
European members of NATO and the USA traded a lot with each other and not with
the USSR and its Warsaw Pact allies. Most of U.S. allies in Asia have deep
economic ties with China. So as China has grown, their trade ties with it have
tended to deepen. China is their leading trade partner. This may need to alter
their strategic calculations and make a trade off between their security needs
and their economic and trade interests. So meeting security obligations may
come with huge economic costs.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">These
challenges require strong and adroit alliance leadership yet Washington is
distracted by the Ukraine war and finding difficulty focusing on Asia.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">So while
ingredients of a strong balancing coalition remain, there is no guarantee it
will achieve sufficient cohesion to succeed on core tasks. Remember the issue
is not how those alliances perform now but how they will perform ten, twenty or
forty years from today.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">There are counter
arguments to what I am saying here. One could say that this is old fashioned
geo politics, that the nuclear revolution makes a war between China and America
less likely, and encourages them to be careful. But they may indulge in proxy
wars, like USA did with the USSR. And, as the current war in Ukraine suggests,
big powers can make stupid mistakes.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Also, the
USA and China are interdependent with strong common interests in economic
cooperation and many shared interests such as on climate change, terrorism etc.
This, many analysts suggest, will dampen potential rivalry. But England and
Germany were the leading trade partners in 1913; so was the USA and UK in the
19th century.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The U.S. may
socialise China by bringing it into the existing international institutions.
But as China grows stronger it may want to change those institutions to conform
with its values and interests – not those of the U.S. and her western allies.
The USA and USSR cooperated on nuclear non-proliferation but that did not stop
their rivalry.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Finally,
U.S. – China rivalry would be disastrous for both. Therefore, all need
far-sighted leadership. But how can we be sure that both will always have
prudent, far sighted leaders all the time? What if one gets a short-sighted
leader (Joe Biden) or bellicose, xenophobic and impulsive leader like Donald
Trump?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">*****</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">amwenda@independent.co.ug<o:p></o:p></p>Independent UGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00597910260410335839noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6321272880913128238.post-18395417473080721522022-06-12T02:59:00.007-07:002022-08-26T09:33:47.923-07:00How to broaden political appeal<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.independent.co.ug/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/museveni-bobi-1.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="350" data-original-width="640" height="175" src="https://www.independent.co.ug/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/museveni-bobi-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #202021; font-family: Roboto; font-size: 12px; font-style: italic; font-weight: 700; text-align: left;">FILE PHOTO: Museveni (left) and Bobi Wine</span></td></tr></tbody></table><b>Lessons for
Uganda’s opposition from the repositioning of the National Front, France’s
far-right party</b><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">THE LAST
WORD | ANDREW M MWENDA | On February 8, 2022, BBC’s Steven Sucker hosted Marine
Le Pen on the Hardtalk program. Le Pen is the leader of the National Front
(FN), a right-wing political party in France. The interview was about the May
7th presidential election in France where Le Pen would later get 41.5% of the
vote against incumbent Emmanuel Macron. This was up from the 34% she got in
2017 against Macron. The FN was founded in 1972 by Jean Marie Le Pen, the
father of Marine. The old Le Pen was its leader until 2011 when he resigned.
His daughter succeeded him and has run the party since.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Now back to
the BBC Hardtalk interview. Le Pen has adopted a more centrist stance, away
from the hard-hitting anti-immigration, anti-Islamic and anti-EU rhetoric her
party and her have always articulated. This change has enraged her right-wing
base and even caused her own niece to back a different candidate. Le Pen’s
father denounced her as an appeaser. Sucker claimed that moderation has sucked
enthusiasm from the NF party, losing its core support-base of right-wing
radical extremists. He even suggested that her performance in the May elections
would be poor.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Le Pen was
not moved. She agreed with Sucker that moderating her party position has lost
the party some of its right-wing base. However, she added, it is also making
the NF appeal to the broad majority of French people. It is losing a small
number in exchange for gaining an even larger one. She added that she does not
want to “add division over division”, to “go over the top,” to “incite violence
and brutality” in her campaign. She punched Sucker with a brilliant right hook
when she said in the past BBC criticised her for being extremist and now that
she has softened her tone, the same BBC are criticising her for being moderate.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Then Sucker
asked why she had changed from advocating that France leaves the EU. She said
her EU stance had forced the EU to change and become more amenable to French
interests, thereby negating her previous position of France leaving the union.
She referred to changes in the EU monetary, agricultural and trade policies and
added that by making these changes, the EU had shown that her criticism was
right. She said, we realised that if we work with our allies inside the EU, we
can cause a lot of change. If we succeed, it makes it unnecessary to leave the
union. It was again an important insight: her party has particular policy aims.
If they are achieved, then her position changes as well.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Towards the
end of the interview, Sucker asked her what she thinks she has achieved in
French politics. He said politics is about winning but Le Pen had lost the
previous two elections and polls were suggesting she was going to lose this one
as well with an even larger margin. She said although her and her party have
never won an election for the presidency, they have won many ideological
victories, causing a major policy shift among French political parties. She
said that it was because of the struggles of her party that the immigration
issue has become central in French politics and is now embraced by other
political parties, globalisation is rejected in France today because of her
party’s efforts, that is also the reason the EU has been reformed. On this list
she added localism and secularism.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">This article
is not about Le Pen and French politics but about politics in Uganda,
especially the lessons for the opposition from her attitude. The opposition,
especially the radical extremists of FDC led by Dr. Kizza Besigye through
“Defiance” and its offshoot, People Power led by Robert Kyagulanyi (aka Bobi
Wine) that now branded itself as NUP need Le Pen’s insights for their own
political strategy. I have always felt that Besigye had less ability to tone
down the radical extremism of the opposition because as a Westerner he lacks an
ethnic base. If he toned-down he can easily be accused of selling out to
President Yoweri Museveni. However, Bobi Wine has a strong ethnic (Baganda) and
religious (Catholic) base. He can use his popularity to broaden NUP’s appeal
beyond its radical extremist base without losing too much support.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">So, what are
the lessons from Le Pen’s strategy for our embattled opposition? First, unless
a political party moves from the fanatical extremist fringe on public policies
to the mainstream, it is most likely to suffer stunted growth. Ideological
purity has a tendency to attract very fanatical and loyal support filled with
enthusiasm and zeal. Granted! But it also limits the ability of such a party to
broaden its appeal, thereby stifling its growth. Of course, there are always
exceptions to such a rule. But to overcome such a handicap and win in spite of
(or even because of extremist positions) such a political party would need very
unique circumstances that are rare to find and/or difficult to recreate.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Second, that
a political party needs to go beyond being against something and stand for
something. Defiance and People Power have one goal –Museveni agende i.e.
Museveni MUST go. They have failed to make any appeal beyond the push to remove
Museveni to presenting themselves as an alternative to Museveni. As a result,
people know what they stand against but hardly anyone knows what they stand
for. Even where they have articulated their case, it has been emotive issues of
human rights and fighting corruption, but rarely and poorly do they present an
alternative assembly of policies and programs to solve Uganda’s problems.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Third, even
where they have articulated some policies, they seem to be oblivious of the
gains that they have realised. For instance, pressure from the opposition has
been central in expanding democratic space, in forcing government to put in
place many accountability institutions and measures to combat corruption and
protect human rights. Yet even here, they have not recognised the effect of
their efforts on government behavior. This is because they have defined their
goal solely as capturing power, not in advancing any particular set of
policies. It means that even the limited policy and governance positions they
take are not deeply rooted in their politics but mere convenient slogans in
their pursuit of power. Consequently, even when they win victories on policy,
they remain feeling empty and defeated because policy has never been their aim
– their aim being power and nothing more and nothing less.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">*****</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">amwenda@independent.co.ug<o:p></o:p></p>Independent UGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00597910260410335839noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6321272880913128238.post-33322442049881825212022-06-06T02:57:00.003-07:002022-08-26T09:32:58.499-07:00The risks of the war in Ukraine<p><b></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://www.independent.co.ug/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Ukraine.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="297" data-original-width="640" height="149" src="https://www.independent.co.ug/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Ukraine.jpg" width="320" /></a></b></div><b><i>How
America’s current leadership is leading the world into a slippery slope towards
nuclear war</i></b><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">THE LAST
WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | The war between Russia and Ukraine has brought
important insights. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the U.S.
has become a bull in a China shop. Rather than be moderated, humbled and tamed
by its victory in the Cold War, America has grown arrogant, belligerent and
bellicose. Today, it stands as the biggest threat to world peace. What
America’s post-Cold War behavior teaches us are the lessons enshrined in its’s
own founding philosophy – the danger of unrestrained power.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The founding
fathers of the USA were afraid of power concentrated in one person. They
designed a constitutional mechanism that threw many obstacles in the way of any
leader. These checks and balances did not stop the U.S. from enslaving its
black population or exterminating Native Americans. On the contrary it facilitated these evils.
The critical point, however, is that these evils were embedded in society, the
state only reflecting existing societal realities. However, they did stop any
single president from exercising the kind of tyrannical power a Stalin or
Hitler did.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I have spent
a lot of my time on this planet reading international politics; especially
great power politics. My dad introduced me to this intellectually stimulating
area of study when I was only 16 years old. He gave me a book written by Robert
Kennedy titled The 13 Days about the Cuban Missile Crisis and asked me to read
it. Like every book he asked me to read when I was young, he would then ask me
what it was about and the lesson I drew from it. The book rivaled some of the
best thrillers by Robert Ludlum, Fredrick Forsyth and Jack Higgins that I had
read in terms of intensity. It led me to a life-long interest in world peace.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Over the
years, I have read, viewed and listened to everything on the Cuba Missile
Crisis that I ever got my eyes and hands onto. This crisis brought the world to
the brink of nuclear annihilation. Had either U.S. President John Kennedy or
Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev not exercised a high degree of restraint,
America, the USSR and Europe would have been destroyed. The lessons drawn from
this crisis are critical for world peace.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">One such
lesson, common with the realist school, is that nations have core or vital
interests – and they will go to great length to defend them. Kennedy learnt
that neither super power should challenge the other in its area of core or
vital interest. Every subsequent U.S. president till Bill Clinton took this
lesson to heart. That is why the U.S. and the USSR fought wars in peripheral
parts of the world, not in those theatres where either had a core/vital
interest. The reason for this is simple: war is cloudy; any small
mis-judgement, miscalculation, miscommunication or mistake can be catastrophic.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">One needs to
read Barbara Tuchman’s majestic book, The Guns of August, and Christopher
Clark’s classic, Sleepwalkers; How Europe Went to War in 1914 to see my point.
Both books demonstrate with incredible insight how a series of
miscommunications, miscalculations and mistakes drove European powers into
World War One. And the danger of war is that it is rare to predict the outcome.
None of the powers that began this war won. The German, Austrian, Russian and
Ottoman empires collapsed as a result of this war. Britain and France emerged
from the war ravaged, weakened, exhausted and bankrupt, too timid later to stop
the raise of Hitler.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">From the
news (largely from Western sources), the Russian army has encountered stiff and
unexpected resistance from the Ukrainians. One reason for this is obviously the
continuous and massive supply of arms and other sophisticated military
equipment from the West. Some (again Western) intelligence sources say that one
reason Russia has lost many generals is because of the drones supplied to
Ukraine by the USA. The same applies to the sinking of the Russian warship in
the black sea.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Reading the
celebratory tones in Western media about these Russian losses is both
depressing and scaring. Any serious person should know that Russia cannot
afford to lose in Ukraine. If anyone expects Moscow to accept a humiliating
retreat from Ukraine, they must be deluded. Ukraine is too close to Russia for Moscow
to withdraw in defeat. It has to win in Ukraine. Ukraine is of vital interest
to Russia, not USA. So Western powers should not escalate the war to achieve an
impossible Ukrainian victory but use their influence to make Kiev negotiate a
peace with Moscow.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Again,
whatever terms of that peace, Ukraine, as the legendary Henry Kissinger has
argued, has to accept some loss of territory, which is sad and depressing, but
which is the best solution. Continuing to supply arms to Ukraine to prolong
this war in the hope of a Russian defeat is a dangerous idea. Even if it
worked, proving that I was wrong in my predictions, I would still argue that it
is too dangerous a risk for Europe and the world to take.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">President
Joe Biden, his advisors and the leaders of America’s satellite states in
Western Europe should be able to see this. If Russia feels it was losing, it
may be forced to escalate the war. One way would be to deploy low yield
tactical nuclear weapons – exactly what America did to Japan when its expected casualty
rate was going to be high. If Russia is forced onto such a desperate measure,
Kiev’s allies must think deeply about its implications on the Ukrainian people.
Entire cities and populations would be incinerated.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">So, if
Moscow employed nuclear weapons to retrieve a lost war, what would be the
response of the U.S. and her allies? Would they retaliate with nuclear attack
on Russia? If they did, what would be Moscow’s response? Russia would respond
with the full might of its nuclear capabilities and raze down America and
Europe. Of course, Russia itself would be destroyed by the USA, UK and France.
Some countries would realise that the security they seek in NATO is a delusion.
NATO would have only saved them from an unlikely Russian occupation (and keeping
their populations alive) only to draw them into inevitable nuclear
annihilation.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">We go back
to the lessons from the Cuban Missile Crisis. In a speech at the American
University in 1963, Kennedy reflected on the lessons he learnt from that
crisis. He said, I paraphrase: we must avoid those confrontations that force
our adversaries into a binary choice to either accept a humiliating defeat or
nuclear war.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">****<o:p></o:p></p>Independent UGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00597910260410335839noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6321272880913128238.post-55995656602288035762022-05-29T02:55:00.006-07:002022-08-26T09:33:14.054-07:00Uganda’s Prisoners’ Dilemma<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.independent.co.ug/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/africa-investment.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="483" data-original-width="640" height="242" src="https://www.independent.co.ug/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/africa-investment.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p><b><i>Why public
investments and appointments are economically inefficient in multi ethnic
societies</i></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">THE LAST
WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | Game theory has the concept of the “Prisoner’s
Dilemma.” This refers to a situation where two members of a criminal gang (John
and David) are arrested by the police and held in two separate rooms. The
police have scanty evidence to convince the judge to convict each of the
prisoners to a maximum sentence of ten years. If both remain silent, the police
can only secure a conviction of one year for each one of them. But if both of
them choose to cooperate with the police, each will serve a sentence of five
years. If one decides to cooperate with the police and the other refuses, the
one who cooperates walks away scot free, the other serves ten years.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">From the
above scenario, the best option for John and David is for both to remain
defiantly silent. The worst case for either of them is if the other defected
and one remained silent. So, the police need to induce one of the prisoners to
betray his colleague. They can offer John a deal: tell us the truths and be our
witness, we shall let you free. If John cooperates with the police and David
remains silent, David will serve ten years.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">John has no
access to David and fears that if given the same deal David will betray
him. There is no honor among thieves.
Besides John is not a brother or father to David. Their relationship is
opportunistic based on robbery. There is little reason to be loyal. David faces
the same incentive. Therefore, the most reasonable thing for both John and
David is to cooperate with the police. So, at the end each gets five years in
jail. But as we know, this is not the worst outcome. However, it is a less
optimal outcome as each one of them will serve five years instead of one. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">This is the
challenge Uganda faces when making public policy or public investments or
public appointments. We are a heterogenous country with many ethnic,
demographic, ideological, gender and religious groups suspicious and jealous of
one another or competing with one another. Any public policy and/or appointment
or investment must balance the conflicting demands of each of these groups and
placate the interests of powerful elites who act as their spokespersons. At the
end of the day what we get is not the most optimal course of action or
appointment but what is a politically acceptable and therefore socially optimal
(as opposed to technically efficient) appointment or investment.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Take the
example of building a paved road. If Uganda considered the economic rate of
return, most funds would be committed to paving roads in Kampala City and the
surrounding districts of Mukono and Wakiso. This is because these areas have
the highest density of traffic and constitute the most productive part of the
economy. Most working Ugandans who produce the largest share of our GDP (about
65%) live and work around these areas. The revenues generated from increased
economic activity can be used to build roads in the rest of the country, at the
right time.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">We would
need a few major trunk roads like one from Kampala through Bombo to Gulu, Lira
and Arua connecting to DRC at Oraba with a link from Gulu to Nimule connecting
to South Sudan; from Kampala through Jinja to Malaba connecting to Kenya and
also branching off to Busia, and to Soroti connecting to Lira; from Kampala to
Fort Portal, Kasese and connecting to DRC and from Kampala through Masaka and
connecting to Tanzania at Mutukula, then going through Mbarara to Kabale and
connecting to Rwanda at Katuna, but also branching off to Bushenyi and
connecting to Kasese; and the final road would go to Hoima and connect to the
oil fields.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">If you look
at the paved roads of Uganda, Kampala and its surrounding districts and with
all their economic activity have been neglected. We have a paved road that runs
from Moroto to Nakapiripirit and there are hardly any cars on it. Karimojong
dry sorghum on the road. Even the road to Moroto does not have traffic to
justify the investment. The road from Fort Portal to Budibugyo, from Fort
Fortal to Kamwenge through Ibanda and Kazo to Lyantonde is also paved but
cannot have as much an economic return as if we built a duo-carriage way from
Nakawa to Port Bell. The road from Gulu through Nwoya to Nebbi, or from Kafu to
Masindi, or Mbarara to Isingiro, or Ishaka to Kagamba, or Mubende to Kakumiro
or Jinja to Kamuli etc. all have little economic return due to limited traffic.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">But roads
are not built for economic reasons alone. If the road is not built in Karamoja,
people there may feel isolated from the rest of Uganda. To make it worse, if a
road is built in Mbarara, the home of President Yoweri Museveni, without
building one in Toro, the people of that great kingdom will claim Museveni is
favouring his home area. To solve the problems of mutual suspicions, roads may
be built to achieve social and political harmony and to represent a fair
distribution of national investments and not necessarily to ensure an economic
return. The same applies to public appointments – considerations of regional,
ethnic, gender and religious balance will trump competence and merit.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">This is why
state intervention in direct economic production faced challenges in Africa’s
multiethnic societies. When a cotton spinning factory was built in Lira as
opposed to Gulu in the 1960s, the Acholi felt Obote was favouring his Lango
region. Had Obote ruled longer, he would have built a factory in Acholi
district, regardless of its economic viability there, in order to allay those
suspicions. In our multiethnic societies public goods become sources of
conflict over identity, making it difficult to follow economic logic and
rationality in making economic investments.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The
solution, even though a partial one, is to rely more on market forces to
promote investment. For instance, if Coca Cola decides to build its soda
factory in Mbarara as opposed to Kabale, the Bakiga will not accuse Museveni of
favouring his region. When private investors begin to build most of their
factories near Kampala instead of Jinja, Basoga will not accuse the NRM of
favouring Baganda because its struggle was based on Luwero (Buganda). In
multiethnic societies, identity trounces economic sense; government decisions
generate political contestations and social conflict. The better to leave
important investment decisions to private agents. One of the reasons Museveni
has achieved political stability has been because of the privatisation and
liberalisation of the economy.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">****<o:p></o:p></p>Independent UGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00597910260410335839noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6321272880913128238.post-11304857105744203392022-05-23T02:54:00.007-07:002022-08-26T09:35:29.649-07:00Museveni’s Umeme mistake<p><b></b></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.independent.co.ug/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/umeme.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="426" data-original-width="640" height="213" src="https://www.independent.co.ug/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/umeme.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p><b><i>Why the
refusal to renew their concession is not a big loss to Ugandan workers and
investors and a boom to foreigners</i></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">THE LAST
WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | For some strange reason(s), President Yoweri Museveni
has a very hostile attitude towards Umeme, Uganda’s main electricity
distributor. Sources say the president has sworn never to renew their
concession when it expires in 2025. This is in spite of the fact that during
negotiations between him and Umeme, both sides agreed to solve the most
contentious issue in the concession – the Rate of Return (ROR) to the investor.
In the current concession, Umeme’s ROR is 20%. In the meeting with Museveni, I
am reliably informed, Umeme agreed to cut it down to 10%.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">There is a
rumour that a Chinese or Turkish investor has promised to take over the
concession at a ROR of 7%. I find it difficult to believe the genuineness of
this investor, if this claim is true. This is because Uganda government is
selling its long-term bond (10 years) at 15% rate of interest. Even though the
Umeme ROR is in U.S. dollars, even at 15% interest in Uganda shillings (if one
calculates the long-term depreciation of our currency) such a ROR would be
better than a $7% in U.S. dollars. Therefore, the president is either
misinformed or has other reasons.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">However, his
stance on Umeme has created great uncertainty. Umeme is a publicly listed
company on Uganda’s fledging stock exchange. When it launched its Initial
Public Offering (IPO), the price per share was Shs240. At its height, the share
of Umeme reached Shs560. When the president began his threats to Umeme,
investors got scared. Since then, the price per share of Umeme has fallen to
Shs250. This represents a drop of more than 50%. Rarely has a well performing
company financially without internal management or business crisis witnessed
such a sharp drop in its share-price.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The point is
that Umeme is owned 23% by Ugandan workers through the National Social Security
Fund (NSSF). Ordinary Ugandan investors own another 13% – making 36% of the
shares in Umeme nationally owned. East Africans combined own 56% of the shares
of Umeme. In a country where multinational capital owns all the commanding
heights of the economy – finance, telecommunications etc., it is a source of
pride that Umeme is the only large company in Uganda with a strong national
ownership. Hence the fall in the share price of Umeme as a result of the
President’s reckless statements is a huge loss to Ugandan workers and
investors. NSSF alone (read Ugandan workers) has lost a huge percentage in its
share value.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Local
ownership also means that even when the investor is guaranteed a high rate of
return, the beneficiaries are citizens who consume and/or invest their proceeds
back in the country. If government pays its own citizens, especially a
multitude of workers, high sums of money, the country loses nothing. It is like
a husband hiring his wife in the family business. However high the wage she is
paid comes back to the family’s coffers.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">It is,
therefore, intriguing that Museveni is hostile to a company a significant share
of whose stock is held by Ugandans while silent on all other companies who are
100% owned by foreigners and whose rate or return is more than 20%. Some of
these companies have made huge profits and shipped them abroad, yet it is
difficult to find any substantial value they have brought into the country that
without them the difference would have substantial. In the mid-2000s MTN had a
rate of return above 50%.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Museveni’s
fixation on Umeme is mostly misguided even though he had a strong point on the
ROR at 20% for donkey’s years. Uganda’s negotiators should have de-risked the
investment after the first five years and even de-risked it more after the IPO
and the Second Public Offering (SPO). Of course, it could also be the case that
an attractive ROR is the one that made Umeme’s IPO and later its SPO attractive
to investors. This, one may argue, brought huge sums of money into the company
as equity to invest in expanding and improving the network that has many
technical problems.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Museveni’s
main complaint against Umeme is that the company’s ROR has made the electricity
tariff very expensive. This can only be partly true because Umeme’s
contribution to the tariff ranges between 27-33%. The biggest contributor to
the tariff is generation which represents 70% of the tariff, with transmission
taking only 5%. If Uganda needs to reduce the tariff, it should focus on when
it is giving concessions to generate electricity. But given the high cost of
building dams, the electricity tariff in Uganda is a matter of the ideology
driving energy policy.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">In 2015, the
World Bank published a study of electricity dynamics in 39 African countries.
Only Uganda’s electricity tariff covered both capital and operational expenses
and made a profit. Second to Uganda was Seychelles, which broke-even: the
tariff paid for both the capital and operational expenses and left no profit.
In the rest of the continent, countries could not recover the cost of capital
and operational expenses through the tariff. So, they all depended on
government to subsidise electricity. At the time, I celebrated Uganda’s
position because I don’t like subsidies. But on deeper reflection, I have had
to change my mind, recognising that my free-market beliefs do not fit Uganda’s
case, especially our ambitions to industrialise and to reduce reliance on
fire-wood.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Uganda’s
energy policy is based on the ideology of the free market – the belief that
electricity is like any other good sold in the market; so, the price charged
should therefore reflect the cost of capital investment and operating expenses
and then make a profit for the investor. An alternative vision would say that
electricity is a public good like a road or security and serves other public
purposes. For instance, we need an affordable tariff to stimulate
industrialisation (making manufactured goods competitive in international
markets) and to protect the environment (since reliance on firewood for cooking
is accelerating deforestation).</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Under this
second vision, government can set the tariff below the cost of producing,
transmitting and distributing electricity and use a subsidy to pay the balance.
This is what is happening in most of Africa. Uganda does not need to subsidise
domestic consumption of electricity. This is because the poorest Ugandans have
already shifted to solar for lighting. The country needs to think of affordable
alternative sources of energy for cooking away from charcoal and fire wood. Our
country needs a very low tariff for manufacturers.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">****<o:p></o:p></p>Independent UGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00597910260410335839noreply@blogger.com0