The problem with the 2016 election

Museveni and his opponents are involved in a quarrel over our past. We need a debate about our future

It seems NRM has decided to use violence to win next year’s presidential election. Problem is President Yoweri Museveni has always been a net loser when he has used violence against his opponents.

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The challenge of economic growth

The debate about the future of Uganda that our presidential candidates should be conducting

We are in the middle of an election campaign and, because our country is poor, the biggest issue should be how to make it rich. For about 30 years, the incumbent, President Yoweri Museveni has been working to grow the economy. To get the best assessment of how he has performed, I go to an organisation that is very good at measuring such things; the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The IMF has data on the economic growth rates of 189 countries since 1950. Its website shows how Uganda has grown over the past 25 years. It also allows us to compare Uganda against the rest of the world.

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Amama Mbabazi’s losing strategy

How Uganda’s elite pundits are misunderstanding the election dynamics and why Mbabazi should worry

There is a widespread perception among a large section of the Ugandan elite class that former Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi has overtaken Kizza Besigye as the main opposition candidate for next year’s presidential election. It is possible this is happening but highly unlikely. There has not yet been a scientific poll to give us real numbers. So for now all of us have to work on our intuition, but most critically on our understanding of the dynamics that drive our insight into our electoral politics.

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About our collective delusions

Besigye’s messiah complex and the triumph of power over values in The “Democratic” Alliance

For most of the last week of September, leading opposition figure, Dr. Kizza Besigye, was a subject of vitriolic attacks by many of his former admirers. All because he refused to endorse former Prime Minister, Amama Mbabazi, as joint opposition flag bearer for next year’s presidential election. Yet none of his critics cared to hear Besigye’s reasons. Instead he was accused of being selfish and power-hungry.

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Putting corruption in perspective

Stealing public funds. About 80,000 children die of preventable diseases each year in Uganda because public officials have stolen money for immunization

Kampala.

Two weeks ago, I said on the NTV News Night show that the existence of corruption in a country does not automatically impede its ability to develop, thereby letting loose the dogs of intellectual (actually mostly emotional) war on twitter, with some accusing me of endorsing corruption. Yet many successful countries had high levels of corruption during their transition from poverty to riches.

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Divided they stand, united they fall

Why the opposition is courting danger in seeking to field one candidate and the risks of a three horse race

Last week, the opposition was involved in skirmishes regarding the selection of a joint presidential candidate under The Democratic Alliance (TDA). The alliance seemed biased on selecting Amama Mbabazi to lead the fight against President Yoweri Museveni. But the most fanatical supporters of the opposition prefer Kizza Besigye. It will be extremely difficult for TDA to convince all sides to field one candidate. Here are the underlying factors.

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Nyakairima and UPDF’s soul

How Nyakairima took UPDF out of headlines and has left a professional respected military

Sometime in 2003, President Yoweri Museveni chaired a meeting of the army high command to discuss highly sensitive matters. The proceedings leaked to me. I was happy to publish a story about them in Daily Monitor, omitting the more sensitive aspects. The president invited me for breakfast at State House Nakasero over the story. He wanted to know my source. He said as a patriotic Ugandan I should know that officers who leak highly classified information are a risk to national security. “We will not harm this officer or officers, not even demote them,” Museveni assured me, “But we need to know so that we do not give them access to national security secrets.”

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