{UAH} Allan/Pojim/WBK: Once were revolutionaries: Can the NRM rediscover its soul? - Comment
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Once were revolutionaries: Can the NRM rediscover its soul?
Will Uganda's ruling party, the National Resistance Movement, ever get its act together again?
This is not an idle question. At the time the then young Yoweri Museveni and his equally young associates decided that they needed to take power by force, having failed to win it via the ballot box because of alleged rigging by the then ruling party, the Uganda People's Congress, few people would have taken them seriously or given them a chance in hell of ever achieving their objective.
Indeed, it is said that the late Apollo Milton Obote, who had just returned to power after a stint in exile, couldn't help joke about what would have seemed like an idle threat. Apparently he promised to follow Museveni to the bush and leave him there, presumably having neutralised him. Well, Museveni and company did prevail, eventually.
There are numerous stories about how it all happened. The relevant one for today is that it took more than simply the desire to seize power. Much hard work for the young guerrillas and suffering for them and the population in the areas they occupied went into it.
Most important, however, was the sheer focus and determination with which they went about wearing down the government's military and political machine.
Many who took part also point to the inspiration they got from the fired-up young Museveni as a critical factor in motivating them to stay the course. A veteran of the war who left his job in another country to join the revolutionaries summed up how he felt after listening to a lecture by Museveni during his induction: "I was ready to follow him anywhere."
And then they took power. Ugandans had never seen anything like it. Many may have been wearing rags and walking barefoot when they emerged from the bush, but gosh, weren't they impressive? One had only to listen to their talk and the words they used to understand that here was a group like no other before it, raring to take the country to great heights.
Reflecting on the national mood in the immediate aftermath of the NRM's ascent to power, one of today's leading opposition figures who would have been in his late teens at the time, spoke of how, "if Museveni had asked us to carry stones on our heads and go build roads, we would have done it."
Such was the trust and enthusiasm the man inspired across the country. And then somehow things changed along the way. Hardly surprising, given it is now 30 years down the line.
What was once a well-organised, highly driven and ideologically grounded political machine that prioritised listening to and serving the people and carrying them along in all its decisions, somewhat lost focus. Over time, it became obsessed with gathering votes.
In recent years, the aspirations of the party, have amounted to little beyond winning the next elections. The original revolutionary drive has lost momentum and been overtaken by "playing politics."
A key factor in this degeneration, it seems to me, was the return to multiparty politics and the discovery by its leadership that winning elections and staying in power takes far more than inspirational talk and the expression of good intentions.
As some Ugandans are wont to say, people don't eat words. They want food, money, and other tangibles. In many ways, these tangibles are at the root of what has been ailing the NRM – which, it is now widely acknowledged, has been operating to far lower standards than it did when it had no opposition snapping at its feet and threatening to cause an electoral upset that could see it lose power and go down in history as yet another Ugandan political party that never quite lived up to its full potential.
Even the most diehard of its supporters and sympathisers agree that abuse of public resources and assets, poor service delivery, disjointedness and to a degree, failure of leadership in a broad sense, feature prominently on its 30-year balance sheet.
Of late, however, something seems to have happened to awaken the leadership to the imperative to change course and rediscover the values and qualities that enabled it to deliver the first insurgency to overturn a sitting government on the continent.
For evidence of efforts to rediscover the old NRM, one need look no farther than the leadership's recent weeklong retreat to which they invited the government's top technocrats and the new Cabinet. If the pronouncements by its spin-doctors are anything to go by, the NRM is determined to reclaim the authority it lost long ago over the government and to assert its right to supervise its functions and call non-performing officials to account as it seeks to implement its manifesto.
Apparently, government and party will henceforth pull in the same direction with a view to becoming efficient and effective during what President Museveni has decreed to be his "no nonsense" (hakuna mchezo) term in office.
Many, among them disillusioned members and fans, are reacting with scepticism, others with ridicule. They argue that the party, lately taken over by opportunists and self-seekers, is incapable of rediscovering its once values-driven self.
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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