{UAH} The Observer - Opposition has to organise to defeat NRM

Columnists

Thursday, 17 April 2014 20:44

Written by moses khisa
I suspect that most regular readers of this column now know my stand as regards Uganda's current politics.

I believe, like many Ugandans, that President Museveni is past his sell-date and that the NRM government is running this country down. The sooner we have a new leadership, the better for Uganda's future. I firmly hold this view and would relish a candid debate with readers who think otherwise.

In saying this, I would like to make a small but important clarification. Recently, one reader emailed me chastising me for being too critical of President Museveni. He implored me to be an "objective scholar."

I appreciated his point but hastened to say that the scholarship I subscribe to, and the objectivity I believe in, enjoin me to take a stand, on a critical question, and defend that stand through rational and factual analysis. This entails critical assessment of facts and arriving at logical conclusions. It also means avoiding blinded partisanship and lopsided reading of events.

Although I criticise the Museveni establishment, my criticisms are neither baseless nor illogical. I am neither blind to the successes of the NRM government and the personal qualities of General Museveni nor oblivious to the many shortcomings of his opponents.

In sum, staying balanced and adhering to objectivity should not, therefore, preclude staking a position and expressing it, especially with respect to the struggle for democracy and freedom, which are values that are inevitably subject to moral judgment.

In my view, hiding behind the façade of professionalism and claims to "objectivity," to disavow holding a political opinion, is at best rather cowardly and at worst hypocritical. On that note, I would like to turn to opposition parties and the broad spectrum of forces opposed to the NRM misrule. The current fad is electoral reform. In principle, this is a laudable initiative.

But upon deeper reflection, I doubt that this is where the efforts of progressive forces should be focusing. The campaign for electoral reform rightly sees the current electoral rules as skewed and the incumbent Electoral Commission (EC) as incapable of holding free, fair and transparent elections.

But the electoral rules and the EC are just a small part of a bigger governance problem. The reason why General Museveni continues to misrule the country is less about a biased EC and more about his firm grip on the military and control over material resources that he uses to rent support.

Hasn't the opposition defeated the ruling behemoth in several constituencies under the same electoral rules and the same less independent EC?

In 2006, the opposition won most parliamentary seats in the wider northern Uganda and the Teso sub-region. And if a by-election was held in Kampala today, Erias Lukwago would easily defeat any NRM candidate. The ultimate challenge, therefore, is how the disparate opposition forces can mobilise the masses to defeat an authoritarian leadership and dismantle the current decadent system of rule. This  system includes the electoral commission!

The unfair electoral rules, and other institutions that adjudicate electoral processes, are part of the ensemble that constitute Museveni's authoritarian regime. These rules and institutions can only be systematically dismantled through a shift in balance of power away from the current mis-rulers to progressive forces. The current laws and institutions reflect the actual balance of power.

The critical shift in the balance of power that we need is both with the masses and the middle-class. The former has the numbers needed to oppose the current system while the latter has the requisite material and human resources to organise and propel the wagons of change. Opposition parties must aggressively tap into resources of the middle-class and woo the masses.

The point needs no belabouring: the opposition must do more introspection. What they should urgently and painstakingly do is to organise, to mobilise and inevitably overpower the authoritarian system. The coterie running Uganda today is too sloshed with power to acquiesce to calls for reforms.

Sadly, the internal organisational capacity of today's opposition parties is shambolic and far from inspiring. Their grassroots presence is at best thin and at worst nonexistent. We may get a new set of good electoral laws and a competent non-partisan and efficient electoral commission, but it's unlikely that the current opposition can muster the organisational strength to defeat an entrenched state-party.
moses.khisa@gmail.com

The author is a PhD Candidate in Political Science at Northwestern University, Evanston/Chicago-USA.

The Observer - Opposition has to organise to defeat NRM
http://www.observer.ug/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=31279:-opposition-has-to-organise-to-defeat-nrm&catid=93:columnists

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