{UAH} Pojim/WBK: Uganda opposition alliance falls apart, surprising nobody - Comment
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Uganda opposition alliance falls apart, surprising nobody
It is official: The massive efforts opposition parties and groups in Uganda have made in recent weeks to build a coalition that could front a unity candidate in next year's presidential election have come to naught. The Democratic Alliance, the vehicle they had set up to produce a consensus candidate, has finally run out of steam.
Some dreaded the collapse would happen and kept hoping and praying it did not. Some hoped it would happen and that it was only a matter of time.
Some, drawing on past experience, believed it was guaranteed to happen, and that only a miracle would prevent it.
This pretty much sums up the three broad categories of Ugandans who spend their time thinking about politics and observing the local political scene.
Those in the first category are supporters of opposition groups who, after years of frustration with being defeated by the ruling party because they were divided, had decided that only unity, leading to an opposition coalition, could bring victory over President Yoweri Museveni, whom they desperately want to remove from power.
The second category comprises supporters of the ruling party and their only candidate, Museveni. They recognise the nightmare a united opposition is likely to be for them and their party.
They, however, believe Uganda's opposition parties and their support groups are simply incapable of marshalling the sense of purpose necessary to coalesce into a single force and face Museveni and the National Resistance Movement as a united front.
The third category comprises observers, casual and otherwise, including a good number of largely apathetic middle-class urbanites who do not belong to any political party, and tend to stay home when others go out to vote on election day. In the current environment, they don't believe their votes can make a difference because the ruling party will win anyway.
They keep hoping that one day politics in Uganda will measure up to their idea of "normal politics," with free and fair elections producing governments everyone sees as legitimate, and allowing for an organised opposition capable of checking the excesses of sitting governments.
The possibility of "normal politics" emerging anytime soon is seen as tied to opposition parties joining hands and defeating the NRM, and laying the ground for a fresh start.
However, at every election season, the opposition parties have proved unable to agree on a common agenda and stick together in its pursuit. Whatever efforts they have made have collapsed at the last hurdle, that of choosing a unity candidate. And with the collapse of each such effort, hopes that they will ever get it right have faded further.
It is this that explains why analysts and the fence-sitting urbanites felt only a miracle could produce a different result this time round.
And so it seems that all that is left now is to ask what is likely to follow. Some TDA members have been quick to claim that the alliance will stand behind the two candidates that are likely to face Museveni on behalf of the opposition forces, former prime minister John Patrick Amama Mbabazi, aka JPAM, and the now perennial opposition presidential flag bearer, retired colonel Kizza Besigye.
How the alliance will support two candidates, each competing against the other and against a sitting president who enjoys massive advantages of incumbency, and what kind of support they will provide to two camps that may end up in mutual hostility, is something of a puzzle though.
There is also the question of how the failure to agree on a unity candidate will impact the morale of actual and potential opposition supporters. Disappointment and frustration may undermine their willingness to come out and participate in elections they may conclude are likely to produce the same predictable result previous elections have produced. The outcome may then be fewer votes for the combined opposition.
It is therefore highly probable that the collapse of the TDA's efforts may have opened the way to another easy win for President Museveni and the ruling party.
There are many reasons why such an outcome is likely. First is the NRM's reach. With tens of thousands of elected officials in the countryside, it has greater presence in every part of the country than any other single political party.
That level of representation gives its candidate, President Museveni, a massive number of campaign agents. Of course, campaign agents mean nothing in themselves without logistical and other support. With its access to a variety of state resources, however, the NRM is able to provide those.
No other single political organisation can muster the necessary resources on a similar scale. And, of course, the NRM has far greater capacity to disorganise its opponents and prevent them from taking their message to the masses than its opponents have.
JPAM may have shown great ability to pull crowds when he was out and about recently, but mechanisms to deal with that must now be in place. It is going to be Museveni all over again, it seems.
Frederick Golooba-Mutebi is a Kampala- and Kigali-based researcher and writer on politics and public affairs. E-mail: fgmutebi@yahoo.com
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