The triumph of security over politics in Museveni’s quest to
contain Besigye’s defiance
From Saturday, May 28 to June 03, Uganda has been a host of
two visiting dignitaries – Presidents Park Geun-hye of South Korea and Recep
Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey. For most of the entire week, the road to Entebbe
International Airport has been literally closed to over 254,000 people who use
it daily. Motorists were forced to use bad dirty roads. Consequently, tens of
thousands of motorists were stuck in traffic or mud in these narrow roads
causing airlines to fly back almost empty.
On Saturday, I was flying out of the Entebbe Airport and met
hundreds of angry travelers – tourists, business executives, Ugandans,
conference attendees etc who had missed their flights after spending five hours
(yes, I mean five hours) trying to navigate their way through diversions to
Entebbe. Apparently, the road would be constantly closed to ensure security of
the visiting dignitaries.
It does not make sense to close the only road to the
airport, which is used by hundreds of thousands of people daily because of a
visiting president. The cheaper alternative would have been to fly the
dignitary using a helicopter from Entebbe to Kampala and back without causing a
traffic nightmare. If our country does not have the helicopters to fly such
important guests, we would have rented some from Rwanda, Kenya or South Africa.
This would have been a cheaper alternative (both economically and politically)
than shutting down a highway – not just for a day but a week.
Why does government resort to such insensitive and
self-defeating strategies? The NRM has increasingly come to behave as a
government under siege precisely because it is under siege. It has lost most of
its ideological traction especially among people aged 15-35 years who are urban
and educated (or semi-educated). Over the last ten years, there has been a
massive shift in perceptions in this segment of our society. The less
intelligent (and therefore more emotional) in this demographic segment have
become radicalised. They support Opposition leader Kizza Besigye in whose
defiance they find meaning and see hope.
The hotbed for this radicalisation is Kampala, which is not
just our capital but also our country’s center of gravity. By “center of
gravity” I mean the heart and nerve center of Uganda around which our political
and economic life depends. If you paralyse Kampala politically, your also
cripple it economically. Thus, even if President Yoweri Museveni enjoyed the
support of 70% of the rural folk (which constitutes 79% of our population and
which I think he actually enjoys), his control of power can be gravely
endangered if Besigye-mania in Kampala was not well managed.
Since the days of ‘Walk to Work’ demonstrations in 2011,
Besigye has emerged as a real threat to power by his militant style. His appeal
among the city’s impoverished and disenfranchised has grown by leaps and
bounds. Social media has created a platform through which anger against the
government is being nursed and radicalised. It has also given Besigye’s
supporters previously unavailable opportunities to argue their case and rally
his base. Increasingly therefore, Kampala is a tinderbox of extreme
anti-Museveni sentiment.
Museveni has sought to contain urban militancy and youth
insurgence that are propelling Besigye’s brand using two main approaches. The
first has been a violent crackdown on protesters using police and military
hardware. It is the visible approach journalists see and report on. But this
has only been a tactical measure to achieve a short-term objective of regime
stability. In the medium term, however, the NRM through the State has employed
a strategy of co-optation of youth leaders in Kampala largely through material
incentives (read bribery). Although this has cut the head from the body,
leaving the latter unable to act effectively, it has not tamed the growth of
militancy and insurgency.
The success of these two measures in the short to medium
term has led some in the government to what I consider a fatal error – the
belief that repression and bribery are sufficient to ensure regime stability in
the long term. Power rotates around three pillars: military/police might (the
power to coerce), economic and financial muscle (the capacity to bribe) and
soft power (the ability to cajole, persuade and convince). With the exception
of Museveni’s son in law Odrek Rwabwogo, it seems government has lost
sight of the aspect of soft power. This is in spite of a long history of NRM
appreciating the value of siasa (or ideology) in power dynamics.
Why does NRM ignore siasa (or soft power) in its strategies
of containing Besigye? Maybe it has internalised the criticism of its opponents
and thereby come to believe that they have totally failed. I have tested this
hypothesis. My exceptionally intelligent research assistant, Ian Ortega, keeps
digging for me figures on different social indicators on Africa. Uganda always
comes among the top five performing countries on the rate and speed of
improvement. My indefatigable Personal Assistant, Simon Nyesiga, compiles for
me figures on economic data comparing Uganda to other African countries and
Uganda comes among the top five performers.
We have gone beyond Africa and rated Uganda’s performance
against the advanced countries in Western Europe and North America on the
growth of selected indicators (GDP, exports, revenues, etc.) and Uganda under
Museveni beats them all.
The argument that Uganda performs this well is not because
it is coming from a low base. How come in Africa only Ethiopia and Rwanda do
better? These research findings have led me to develop what I call “Uganda’s
(or Museveni’s) incompetence paradox.”
While I have always seen our government as incompetent,
research findings show that it performs very well comparatively. This has
increasingly led me away from my initial biases based on simple anecdotes like
Abim Hospital and Paya Primary School. On the aggregate, Museveni’s government
actually delivers public goods and services far better than most countries
within its comparison group.
Why then doesn’t NRM seek to win Ugandans on the basis of
these achievements? This can be done through political mobilisation and media
engagement especially on social media. Yet, NRM has increasingly come to rely
heavily on violence and bribery. Kampala looks like a war-zone with APCs on
almost every roundabout in the city. Maybe it is because Museveni is a
specialist in violence, an instrument he used to capture power and therefore
reverts to it to protect it. If this is the case, then indeed, old habits die
hard.
amwenda@independent.co.ug
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