{UAH} Pojim/WBK: The Muntu enigma may cost FDC the presidency a third time - News - www.theeastafrican.co.ke

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The Muntu enigma may cost FDC the presidency a third time - News

While many believe he is the person with the character to restore much-needed discipline and sanity in Uganda, the FDC head may lack the spark to clinch electoral victory. PHOTO | FILE |  NATION MEDIA GROUP

On the face of it, Mugisha Muntu is trying everything possible to fire up the opposition Forum for Democratic Change in readiness for the 2016 general elections.

But then, long-running tensions over his leadership style look poised to make defeating the incumbent, an already seemingly impossible task, all the more difficult.

The enigma that Mr Muntu presents in Ugandan politics has done little to help. A genial, well regarded man, this former army commander for nine years commands belief as the man with a resolute character needed to restore discipline and institutional sanity in Uganda. Yet he presents as too cold to make a mark in Uganda's politics of survival.

In FDC, Mr Muntu's critics cite his record as its chief mobiliser to back this claim.

Recalling the 10 years Mr Muntu was the party's secretary for mobilisation before he assumed its presidency, Jack Sabiiti, a founding member of FDC and MP for Rukiga County, said: "Muntu is a good man; he is one of those people who is not corrupt, is determined, straightforward and can stand for what he says he is, but he does not have those mobilisation skills.

"This let us down. He never worked as we thought he should have worked."

However, Mr Muntu says his time has come.

"We are on the right side of history," he told The EastAfrican. "The things we are doing are right and we are operating in an environment where people are increasingly questioning the status quo.

"It might not be evident but we hear that a lot in our engagements and it creates an environment within which we can influence people to come to our side.

"As the dynamics of change in society show, always you will find two kinds of forces: One that is ascending and the other that is descending. In historical terms, the Movement is a descending force even if it may not immediately appear as such.

"We are an ascending force. So as long as we keep doing the right things, we will keep building strengths and we will take power."

Mr Muntu's allies rebuff accusations that his calm and cautious style of leadership has numbed FDC's vibrancy, shredded its visibility, affected how the public perceives it and, to some extent, compromised its sources of funding.

"When the party leadership analysed its performance in the 2011 elections, there was a general feeling that we needed to change our approach from being overly confrontational to try to engage more because the aggressive way seemed not to be working for us," said a source close to Mr Muntu.

The source added: "There are some people who felt we were too angry, which did not reflect well on us. The party leadership then unilaterally agreed that we needed to tone that down.

"It is not Muntu who made this suggestion; so, it is not correct when some people accuse Muntu of weakening the party."

According to a recent public poll conducted by the Washington-based International Republican Institute, 60 per cent of respondents expressed doubt that any other political party could have done a better job of handling the country's pressing problems than the ruling NRM has since 2011.

These challenges include unemployment, infrastructure/roads, water supply, poverty/destitution, education, healthcare and corruption. Analysts say this low assessment of the competing parties' capabilities has largely been shaped by their endless internal squabbles.

"There is a significant impact on how internal fights in political parties shape how the public weighs them and assesses their abilities to perform," said Joseph Munyangabo, the technical advisor of IRI in Uganda.

"You can link the dissatisfaction of people with political parties with their clear belief that if they came together, as they have done with the campaign for free and fair elections, they are capable of having a big impact."

For Uganda's largest opposition party by parliamentary representation, the tensions arise out of the circumstances leading up to what became a bitter contest to replace Dr Kizza Besigye nearly two and a half years on. In it, Mr Muntu defeated Nandala Mafabi by just 32 votes.

Underlying these circumstances, sources say, was a breakdown of goodwill and selflessness that were cornerstones in the party's formation, deep-rooted mistrust and suspicion that in large part has fuelled a jostling for positions, all of which have hamstrung the party's long-term view of itself.

"The party lost its cohesion because of a breakdown in trust," said Mr Sabiiti, who was until recently the party's treasurer. "We allowed people to come and take positions and we thought some of the people were as serious and saw the party's future the same way we did."

As it were, in July 2011, when Dr Besigye announced his decision to step down as the FDC president three years before his term ended, the party's top leadership was split down the middle. One section proposed to handpick a "successor" to maintain momentum and see out his term.

As they saw it, the party was still too young and fragile to alter its course. Their choice candidate was Mr Mafabi, then the party's deputy treasurer, because he presented a similar disposition to Mr Besigye.

The other section, which mostly backed Mr Muntu, insisted on having elections because they reflected the ideals of FDC as an open, transparent and equal opportunity political party.

"Some of us felt we needed someone to revitalise the party and carry forward what Besigye had started," Mr Sabiiti explained. 
"We felt also that eastern Uganda was a virgin, high-growth area and we felt Nandala was well suited for the role as party president because he had the capacity to rally members but to also mobilise finances.

"We felt Muntu was better suited as a presidential candidate and Nandala as a party president because of their different characters and the situation we were in. We felt that the combination of East and West at that level would have been great for FDC."

‎There have been countless formal and informal reconciliation meetings convened to heal the rifts that formed out of the Muntu-Nandala battle that was marked by mudslinging and attacks along ethnic lines as well as those that were regarded as below the belt.

Yet all that this effort has succeeded in doing is push the bitterness that attended their contest beneath the surface. Away from public view, this animosity has continued to fan disengagement and discord, thus disabling the party from pulling in one direction — a factor that observers claim continues to hurt its public image.

Evidence of the party's dissonance was displayed on March 14 when the first open-air launch of its revised policy agenda at the Nakivubo War Memorial Stadium drew no more than 200 people.

Located right in the middle of downtown Kampala, Nakivubo has a holding capacity of 15,000 people. It is in the heart of an area that the party counts among its strongholds. That Mr Muntu could not fill the stadium or even draw out half its capacity despite a six-hour delay spoke volumes about his scant mobilisation skills.

"The event was poorly organised," Ssemujju Nganda, an FDC MP, observed. "First of all, Nakivubo is not a good venue for public meetings because of accessibility.

"Secondly, in every university there is a structure. Had they simply mobilised these, there would have been a huge turnout. The secretariat simply took people for granted."

Conspicuously absent at Nakivubo were many of FDC's bigwigs — including its MPs in the city and surrounding constituencies, a few of whom were in attendance when Mr Muntu unveiled the same four-point agenda to a full house at the Kampala International Conference Centre five days earlier, a success attributed to the ease of organising indoor meetings.

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