{UAH} The Observer - Museveni jobs, cash tame FDC
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The Observer - Museveni jobs, cash tame FDC
Thursday, 06 February 2014 23:32
With two years left to the 2016 elections, President Museveni has accelerated his political attack on the opposition support base, splashing money and jobs to draw opposition supporters to his NRM side.
The last 12 months have been marked by several defections to NRM of middle-level and grassroots opposition leaders across the country. Major (retired) Ruranga Rubaramira, formerly of FDC, may have been the most prominent, but he was one among many.
Although the exact numbers involved have been disputed by the opposition, crossing to NRM has become part of the agenda wherever Museveni has paid a visit or hosted delegations at his home, more so during the last 12 months.
The latest indication that the next 24 months will follow the same pattern is the just-released new RDCs list which has at least five former opposition leaders being named. These include Mwaka Lutukomoi, a former Democratic Party spokesman, Nasser Munulo, a former FDC leader in Iganga, and Moses Nuwagaba, a former UPC spokesman.
But nowhere has the impact of Museveni's political and financial muscle been felt as in Busoga sub-region. At the 28th NRM anniversary celebrations in Mayuge on January 26, Stanley Bayole handed the ruling party a perfect gift, as he crossed over from FDC.
An influential opposition figure, Bayole is a former mayor of Mayuge town council and brother to Richard Kudeeba, the current FDC chairperson in Mayuge district. He is also a former contender for the district chairmanship. Justifying his defection, Bayole said he had joined NRM to spearhead transformation and development in the district.
These are, indeed, worrying times for Uganda's largest opposition party, FDC, especially in Busoga. In just one year, the party has also lost Maureen Kyalya, a former FDC candidate for the Jinja district woman seat. She is now a presidential advisor on poverty eradication.
"This is seriously affecting us as a party but we have no control over our supporters' political choices. It is within every Ugandan's right to decide which party they should belong to," said Sulaiman Magumba, FDC chairperson for Iganga district.
Nasser Mudiobole, a former aspirant for the Iganga municipality parliamentary seat, said the party needed to reorganize ahead of 2016.
"If this had happened two months to the nomination, then it could have been the worst. But since it has happened now, it is time to counter other possible defections by causing internal reorganisation," he said.
Fighting back
After FDC's Paul Mwiru defeated NRM's Nathan Igeme Nabeta during the Jinja municipality East parliamentary by-election and Salaamu Musumba became Kamuli district chairperson in 2012, it appeared that the opposition was making inroads in Busoga, a region considered an NRM stronghold. But it now seems that this was a wake-up call for the NRM.
"This was a signal to them that they are losing ground and, indeed, they have made Busoga a battleground between President Museveni and the emerging opposition," Magumba told The Observer.
After the Jinja municipality East by-election, NRM sanctioned an investigation into why they had lost the seat. In March 2012, a group of political leaders from Busoga visited President Museveni at State House Entebbe and advised him to expeditiously deliver on his promise to end poverty.
The group, which included district chairpersons and resident district commissioners in all Busoga districts was led by Rebecca Kadaga, the speaker of Parliament, who also doubles as chairperson of the Busoga parliamentary caucus.
It is said that during this meeting, NRM leaders told Museveni that NRM support was on the wane if he did not respond to the people's concerns. Since then, President Museveni has been far more engaged in the sub-region than before.
In the last one year, he has visited Busoga at least 10 times and made donations to different groups, including the infamous Shs 250m to Busoga Youth Trust, a Toyota Hiace to Busoga Pride Cultural Group, and Shs 200m to Busoga Tourism Initiative.
On these visits, the president has tried to dissuade some NRM supporters from flirting with a Kadaga presidential bid and also reached out to some opposition leaders.
"I know it very well that his people have approached people like Robert Kanusu (former UPC candidate for Jinja district chairman) and Salaamu Musumba, the FDC vice-president for Eastern Uganda, to defect to NRM," said a source.
However, the attempt to lure Kanusu backfired in public after the UPC man rejected an NRM cap offered to him by the President during an event in Jinja last year. As for Musumba, a senior opposition leader says they have been unsettled by the Kamuli chairperson's close association with NRM, including attending its functions. The latest was last month's NRM victory celebrations held at Mayuge playground.
"This is a very serious issue. How can a vice-president of a party attend NRM celebrations? Can you imagine that she was aware that Bayole was defecting on that day, and she instead decided to be a witness," said Assad Kato, a supporter of FDC in Jinja.
Why leave?
Mudiobole, a Kampala based lawyer, believes that the huge financial benefit of being in government makes NRM almost irresistible.
"You see some of us can survive in the opposition because we have jobs or are practising our professions, something that the Bayoles of this world cannot stand."
Mudiobole adds that politics was not supposed to be a job, but a public service based on conviction derived from idealism. Instead, materialism seems to be taking root, with politicians looking for nothing more than a decent source of a livelihood, he said.
Jinja Municipality East MP Mwiru agrees with Mudiobole. "If someone abandons the struggle and goes for survival, then it will be the public that will judge him or her. The public believes in us because of the value system that guides our conduct," Mwiru said.
FDC challenges
Magumba sees the need for FDC to reorganise itself.
"We have faced many challenges as a party but I think that we need to iron out our problems instead of solely blaming those who cross. We need to make the party attractive to those who believe that change is needed," he says.
It is the same view from Wafula Oguttu, the Bukooli Central MP and newly-appointed leader of opposition in Parliament.
"Those who have crossed are seeking survival, nothing else, because if someone believes in the ideals of FDC, then there is no reason why they can give that as an excuse for crossing," Oguttu said.
As if to make matters worse, we understand that FDC is currently experiencing a financial squeeze, which has impeded their ability to implement some of their plans. On Musumba's disposition, Oguttu says the party appreciates the circumstances under which she is working.
"You see she is a district chairperson who is serving in a representative body that is majorly NRM. So, if she is to deliver, she has to work with them," Oguttu says.
http://www.observer.ug/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=30017:-museveni-jobs-cash-tame-fdc&catid=78:topstories&Itemid=116
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