To be radical, NUP should do nothing!

We live in somewhat the end of history in the Museveni hegemonic order of things.

After decades in power, it is now seemingly impossible to dislodge him. Until the recent emergence of National Unity Platform’s (NUP) Robert Kyagulanyi Sentamu alias Bobi Wine, President Museveni’s greatest opponents have been his bush war comrades.

The common sense propagated in political discourse is that the man is a vampire. The lesson gleaned from cinema lately is that vampires, even when dead, resurrect.  Little wonder his bush stories have a metaphysical component with stories about him morphing into an old man or cat.

In explaining his longevity in power, many of his opponents argue that bribery, corruption, and coercion are exclusively responsible for his chokehold onto state power in Uganda. This view can be accessed from the logic in all dailies and political commentary in Uganda.

The opponents argue that they have nationwide support but merely lack the power over the force of arms and that to coerce the Electoral Commission into declaring them as the legitimate winners of the elections.

These views are far from mobilizing pity and sympathy from the electorate, mobilize apathy and create a mystery around the person of Museveni. In a country with a peasant majority, they are most likely to affirm power, rather than challenge it.

And examples of botched processes aimed at challenging his power like the September 2009 riots and Walk to Work in 2011, among others, were dealt with firmly.

I think of all political actors, NUP seems to have understood this Museveni dilemma. The dilemma that nothing can change despite so many emancipatory attempts at either regime or policy change.

This is something discontented members of the National Resistance Movement (NRM) also grudgingly accepted after the age limit amendment in 2017. The amendment was of crucial importance to the politics of Uganda because it destroyed all hope for a peaceful transition.

New actors were birthed by this discontent and those that had been on the scene far too long like FDC’s Dr Kizza Besigye were abandoned.  The 2021 general election was bound to be more violent than it did thanks to Covid-19 restrictions. After 2021, a new rift emerged in the NRM, propping the president’s son, Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba, as successor to his father.  

This was meant to assuage Museveni and all those with interests in his reign. Going by the processions, NRM leaders thought Muhoozi served as better substitute for Amama Mbabazi in 2016.

Drama as Politics or Dramatized Politics.

Against this backdrop laden with many historical lessons, NUP was prepared to do some radical and subversive acts without exactly being radical or subversive.

With a thorny jewel of a crown after the 2021 general elections, the neophytes were not about to let and spill more blood. Where Besigye was agitating for insurrections and mobilizing street protest to overturn the government in Kampala or prompt it into serious bloodletting, then strongarm it into a power sharing arrangement, NUP opted for inaction.

NUP, under the embattled former Leader of Opposition (LOP) Matthias Mpuuga, released what they dubbed “Legislative Agenda.” I don’t know who is keeping stock, but it seems it suffered still-birth with little or no discussion.

Now under the rabble-rousing LOP Joel Ssenyonyi, they have an alternative budget. Among other things, they ask the state to fight corruption and deliver on a vast number of public goods despite a very meagre budget. The aim here is to guilt-trap the state by bombarding it with endless lists of demands that they know it cannot fulfil and hence hold it accountable for its hypocrisy.

By forming committees of parliament that should hold the state accountable, NUP endorses the idea that this is a state that can still be held accountable. If anything, the so many stories surrounding the Cosase probe of the Uganda Airlines CEO serves to demonstrate this paradox.  
NUP scored highly by exposing the rot in the management of the national carrier, but the state also scored by letting all and sundry to criticize it for this mismanagement, hence scoring on the democratic chart.

Imagine NRM’s dilemma if Bobi Wine and NUP rejected the election in its entirety, calling it a decorated sham, choosing not to participate at all levels. Rejecting the token that is parliament. If resistance is surrender, then by doing nothing, NUP, and unlike its predecessors like the FDC and DP, would have done a radical and subversive act.  

joelmukisa13@gmail.com

The author is a social and political commentator