EAR TO THE GROUND: Museveni isn't giving up, he's just digging
in
By Charles Onyango-Obbo
President Yoweri Museveni has, finally, taken a position in
favour of
opening up the political system to free competition by political
parties.
The hard questions are now pouring in: Is he serious, and why
now? When will
this opening up really happen? Will the people who have grown
fat on the
Movement's one-party system, including sections of the military,
let him get
way with it or will they attempt to kick him out?
Generally there are two vocal views on the matter. One, that
President
Museveni was never opposed to parties as such, except he thought
it wasn't
the right time to open up. Second, that he's responding to
pressure from the
growing threat of a major rebellion, and the factional splits in
the
Movement which are eroding his power. He's therefore trying to
buy himself
some more time on a new ticket as a reformist.
Perhaps both views are right.
However, the problem is wider than Mr Museveni and the troubled
Movement.
There is a wider political problem that encompasses the Movement
and its
main party rivals, the UPC, DP. All of them are advocates of
democracy when
they are out of power or in turmoil.
The UPC became part of the liberation movement against Idi Amin
after its
one-party rule was overthrown in 1971. It became repressive
after it won
power in the December 1980 elections, and became democratic
again after
being ousted in July 1985 - now even supporting the monarchies
it banned in
1966.
The DP, Uganda's professional opposition party, was always
democratic until,
for six months after the July 1985 coup, its leader Dr Paul
Ssemogerere was
invited into government as minister by the military junta of the
Okellos
(Tito and Basilio).
In the first years of the Movement, when DP was the unofficial
junior
partner in government, Dr Ssemogerere even ! backed t he crackdown
on attempts
by a wing of his party to hold rallies, and turned his back on
senior DP
politicians who were arrested on trumped up treason charges. It
was after DP
had been sidelined and Dr Ssemogerere resigned from government
in 1995, that
he rediscovered the democratic path.
Likewise, Mr Museveni and his Uganda Patriotic Movement (UPM)
were democrats
in 1980. Then he went to the bush and formed the National
Resistance
Army/Movement to fight Milton Obote's UPC government, and then
the Okellos'
junta. Once entrenched, Mr Museveni saw to it that even UPM was
"dissolved".
The famous criticism of corruption, opulence, and the torture
chambers that
he and his comrades had so much condemned past regimes for
returned in a
bigger way - certainly the corruption and the opulence. And, to
cap it all,
the one party-type politics they so vilified became the
"Movement/individual
merit" system.
As these political organisations lose their idealism, and wallow
in
corruption, nepotism, and cruel rule, they are usually deserted
by the
brighter minds and face public apathy. As the best and brightest
are
disillusioned by politics and leave, a vacuum is created. This
vacuum is now
filled by the tough guys; then the folks who can no longer make
a living
outside politics; and also the types who want to enrich
themselves using
state power. Thus a process of degeneration sets in.
Whether or not a regime is faced by the threat of rebellions
(after all Mr
Museveni didn't open up in the 1980s when more serious groups
like the UPDA
were fighting him) or internal party strife, at one point it
will seek
cohesion.
And here, then, is the tricky part. By opening up, Mr Museveni
would seem to
be reaching out again. But effectively he is narrowing down. As
the
president is alleged to have said, opening up is partly to allow
those who
don't believe in the Movement to walk away! , and le ave it for
those (few) who
believe in it. So while Museveni might appear to some to be
giving up, he's
in fact digging in. One good example of this was the recent
elections in
Israel when Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's Likud and the Labour
party
coalition collapsed because he could no longer live with the
latter's
opposition to his hard line against the Palestinians. Mr Sharon
went on to
score a resounding victory (by Israeli standards), and the
dowish Labour
party was handed its biggest electoral humiliation of recent
years.
Opening up, done early before the anger boils over as the late
Julius
Nyerere did in 1985, can land a party a new lease of political
dominance as
we have seen with Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) in Tanzania. Done
years late as
Kenya's Daniel arap Moi did in 1992, will win a party one easy
win against
an opposition in disarray, and one narrow escape helped by a
ballot swindle.
Thus Mr Moi and KANU won easily in 1992, struggled badly in
1997, before the
party was electorally obliterated in December 2002.
So, while the embarrassment of having to do a 360 degrees
turn-around for
those people who have been parroting Mr Museveni's anti-party
line might
seem a little too much, they should not be blinded to the real
possibility
that The Chief might just have snatched a big victory out of the
jaws of
defeat.
The parties should also not celebrate prematurely, because the
real hard
work might just have begun. In Kenya it took the opposition 10
years to oust
Mr Moi, and for his KANU to disintegrate. Even with a rebellion,
a more
narrowly-based but highly cohesive Movement can easily remain in
power until
2016 - with Museveni as president.
The author can be reached on [EMAIL PROTECTED] and
[EMAIL PROTECTED].
February 25, 2003 11:58:00
in
By Charles Onyango-Obbo
President Yoweri Museveni has, finally, taken a position in
favour of
opening up the political system to free competition by political
parties.
The hard questions are now pouring in: Is he serious, and why
now? When will
this opening up really happen? Will the people who have grown
fat on the
Movement's one-party system, including sections of the military,
let him get
way with it or will they attempt to kick him out?
Generally there are two vocal views on the matter. One, that
President
Museveni was never opposed to parties as such, except he thought
it wasn't
the right time to open up. Second, that he's responding to
pressure from the
growing threat of a major rebellion, and the factional splits in
the
Movement which are eroding his power. He's therefore trying to
buy himself
some more time on a new ticket as a reformist.
Perhaps both views are right.
However, the problem is wider than Mr Museveni and the troubled
Movement.
There is a wider political problem that encompasses the Movement
and its
main party rivals, the UPC, DP. All of them are advocates of
democracy when
they are out of power or in turmoil.
The UPC became part of the liberation movement against Idi Amin
after its
one-party rule was overthrown in 1971. It became repressive
after it won
power in the December 1980 elections, and became democratic
again after
being ousted in July 1985 - now even supporting the monarchies
it banned in
1966.
The DP, Uganda's professional opposition party, was always
democratic until,
for six months after the July 1985 coup, its leader Dr Paul
Ssemogerere was
invited into government as minister by the military junta of the
Okellos
(Tito and Basilio).
In the first years of the Movement, when DP was the unofficial
junior
partner in government, Dr Ssemogerere even ! backed t he crackdown
on attempts
by a wing of his party to hold rallies, and turned his back on
senior DP
politicians who were arrested on trumped up treason charges. It
was after DP
had been sidelined and Dr Ssemogerere resigned from government
in 1995, that
he rediscovered the democratic path.
Likewise, Mr Museveni and his Uganda Patriotic Movement (UPM)
were democrats
in 1980. Then he went to the bush and formed the National
Resistance
Army/Movement to fight Milton Obote's UPC government, and then
the Okellos'
junta. Once entrenched, Mr Museveni saw to it that even UPM was
"dissolved".
The famous criticism of corruption, opulence, and the torture
chambers that
he and his comrades had so much condemned past regimes for
returned in a
bigger way - certainly the corruption and the opulence. And, to
cap it all,
the one party-type politics they so vilified became the
"Movement/individual
merit" system.
As these political organisations lose their idealism, and wallow
in
corruption, nepotism, and cruel rule, they are usually deserted
by the
brighter minds and face public apathy. As the best and brightest
are
disillusioned by politics and leave, a vacuum is created. This
vacuum is now
filled by the tough guys; then the folks who can no longer make
a living
outside politics; and also the types who want to enrich
themselves using
state power. Thus a process of degeneration sets in.
Whether or not a regime is faced by the threat of rebellions
(after all Mr
Museveni didn't open up in the 1980s when more serious groups
like the UPDA
were fighting him) or internal party strife, at one point it
will seek
cohesion.
And here, then, is the tricky part. By opening up, Mr Museveni
would seem to
be reaching out again. But effectively he is narrowing down. As
the
president is alleged to have said, opening up is partly to allow
those who
don't believe in the Movement to walk away! , and le ave it for
those (few) who
believe in it. So while Museveni might appear to some to be
giving up, he's
in fact digging in. One good example of this was the recent
elections in
Israel when Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's Likud and the Labour
party
coalition collapsed because he could no longer live with the
latter's
opposition to his hard line against the Palestinians. Mr Sharon
went on to
score a resounding victory (by Israeli standards), and the
dowish Labour
party was handed its biggest electoral humiliation of recent
years.
Opening up, done early before the anger boils over as the late
Julius
Nyerere did in 1985, can land a party a new lease of political
dominance as
we have seen with Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) in Tanzania. Done
years late as
Kenya's Daniel arap Moi did in 1992, will win a party one easy
win against
an opposition in disarray, and one narrow escape helped by a
ballot swindle.
Thus Mr Moi and KANU won easily in 1992, struggled badly in
1997, before the
party was electorally obliterated in December 2002.
So, while the embarrassment of having to do a 360 degrees
turn-around for
those people who have been parroting Mr Museveni's anti-party
line might
seem a little too much, they should not be blinded to the real
possibility
that The Chief might just have snatched a big victory out of the
jaws of
defeat.
The parties should also not celebrate prematurely, because the
real hard
work might just have begun. In Kenya it took the opposition 10
years to oust
Mr Moi, and for his KANU to disintegrate. Even with a rebellion,
a more
narrowly-based but highly cohesive Movement can easily remain in
power until
2016 - with Museveni as president.
The author can be reached on [EMAIL PROTECTED] and
[EMAIL PROTECTED].
February 25, 2003 11:58:00
Gook
“We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of bad people but also for the appalling silence of good people". M.L.King
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