How Museveni’s victory saved Besigye from confronting the hard reality of Uganda’s politics
President Yoweri Museveni has again
defeated his main rival, Dr. Kizza Besigye, in an election the
opposition claim was stolen. Whatever the merits of this accusation,
Besigye’s defeat is also his greatest triumph. It has saved him from
confronting the reality of managing a poor country, a factor that would
have humbled Besigye and quieted his unthinking and often, unruly
supporters. Let us assume a Besigye victory where Museveni would have
conceded defeat, called the retired colonel, and congratulated him upon
his victory. In one stroke, Museveni would have delivered unto his main
rival a devastating knockout blow. Besigye has always claimed that
Museveni is a power-hungry maniac determined to cling to power as all
costs. In conceding defeat, the president would have made Besigye’s
accusation lose meaning.
While Museveni’s democratic credentials
would be souring, Besigye’s dreams would be rapidly coming face to face
with the Uganda’s reality. Besigye has been exposing the failures of
government in the delivery of public goods and services –roads, schools
and hospitals in a state of disrepair. He has exposed health centers
without drugs or medical staff and schools with absentee teachers. He
claims this is because Museveni has no interest in the welfare of his
citizens and runs a government of looters.
Thus, Besigye has created huge public
expectations that once Museveni is gone, everything will in one night
and by one stroke get better. Hospitals will be stocked with overflowing
drugs, students given laptops, roads tarmacked, corruption and greed of
politicians banished; every Ugandan will be walking with a swagger. His
core support-base of unemployed or underemployed male youths believe
his rhetoric and expect their circumstances to change over night.
Yet upon entering State House, Besigye
would realise that a budget of Shs 20 trillion for 36 million citizens
next Financial Year translates to Shs555,000 ($160) per person. Even in
the US, which spent Shs70 million ($20,265) per person last year, many
public goods are in a state of disrepair: broken bridges, collapsing
highways, and abandoned neighborhoods. The US has expensive healthcare,
its public schools are in a mess, and there is rampant unemployment
among ethnic minorities – among black male youths it is 40%. Yet in
spite of a small budget, Besigye would have to meet his oversized
promises. He would have to increase teachers’ and doctors’ salaries.
Then all other public sector workers would demand the same. Should he
refuse, they would threaten to strike and paralyse government and accuse
him of not caring about their welfare. Should he try to intimidate
them, he would be called a dictator. Should he concede to their demands,
public sector wages would sky rocket.
In such fiscal circumstances, President
Besigye would realise he is unable to pay for his ambitious agriculture
plans, finance his youth unemployment program, build or repair roads and
dams, stock hospitals with drugs, buy laptops for secondary schools
pupils, etc. The IMF and World Bank would be shouting down his neck that
he is fiscally irresponsible. They would block his plans to borrow.
If he tries to raise money by increasing
taxes, the business community would rise up in arms. Should he try to
widen the tax base to collect taxes, the informal sector – his
support-base of vendors and hawkers- would sound the clarion call for
rebellion. Should he try to collect taxes from agriculture, peasants
would become restless.
Meantime, President Besigye would be
seeking to sell his policies to a parliament where his party, FDC, has
37 MPs and NRM 286 and 44 allied independents. To get legislation
through, Besigye would be forced to negotiate with NRM MPs. Yet they
would have come from both their party primary and the national election
broke and heavily indebted. They would sense President Besigye’s
vulnerability and seek to make the best out of it.
NRM MPs would put a price on
collaborating with President Besigye. He would have to give some of them
ministerial positions in exchange for collaboration. But he has many
FDC and other opposition MPs to appoint to cabinet, yet he promised to
cut it to 40 ministers. Besides, since a minister in Uganda is paid as
an MP, NRM MPs would accept Besigye’s ministerial inducements not just
for reasons of prestige but to be able to steal and repay their election
debts and make more money for the next election. If President Besigye
refuses to pragmatically accept such a corrupt bargain, they would
become recalcitrant and uncompromising. Can President Besigye stand on
principle and appeal directly to the people. Would that help? How?
Besides, how would any politician meet the ever increasing demands of
their constituents for fees, hospital bills, funeral expenses etc.
without extra unofficial income i.e. corruption? If Besigye tries to
bypass parliament, he would be accused of being a dictator worse than
Museveni.
Meanwhile, President Besigye would also
be facing agitation among FDC MPs. Having been out of power for long,
this would be their chance to compensate for lost time. Immediately they
come to office, and unsophisticated in the art of public loot as NRM
ministers are, they would steal with such clumsiness that soon the media
would be awash with scandals of their loot. What would President
Besigye do to them when they are the only allies he has in parliament?
Three years into his presidency,
President Besigye would not have tarmacked even 5% of Uganda’s 64,000
kilometers of road network. He would not have repaired many hospitals or
schools. Abim would still be Abim. His planned savings on public sector
corruption would have ground to almost nothing since his people want to
line their pockets as fast as possible before the 2021 election.
Sitting back in State House Entebbe, Besigye would realise that all the
accusations he made against Museveni were not well founded.
Meanwhile, while sipping his milk at
Rwakitura, reading newspaper stories of one financial scandal after
another and listening to quarrels on radio over corruption under Besigye
being worse than under Museveni, the ex-president would tap his wife on
the shoulder: “Mama, look at what is happening to this Besigye. It is
exactly what happened to me after I had spent decades denouncing Milton
Obote and Idi Amin, accusing them of being the source of all Uganda’s
ills.” This is the story of Africa’s promising reformers from Ghana to
Malawi, Zambia, Senegal, Kenya, Benin and Ivory Coast. In winning (or
stealing) this election, Museveni has denied us an opportunity to see
Besigye brought from the trees of utopia to the hard rock of reality.
amwenda@independent.co.ug
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