By Joseph Were
Oct 23, 2003
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�The more you talk about my staying in power the more I may change my mind about leaving because it makes me wonder as to why you are interested in my leaving yet you are not showing a vision for the future.� Ugandans are rightly intrigued by that statement by the President, Lt Gen. Yoweri Museveni at Entebbe on October 10 during the annual meeting of East African lawyers. First, this retort is different from his usual claim that whether or not he would leave power when his constitutionally prescribed two terms end in 2006 is not an issue. In this, Museveni has sought to appear to be unaware that Uganda�s fundamental problem is the failure to transfer power from one regime to another without resorting to violence. This statement is an obvious indication that Museveni is weighing his options. Notice that he says �the MORE I may change my mind�. Does this mean he has already �changed his mind� and is clinging on or is the �more� merely a speech device. Taken plainly, the statement also implies that Mr Museveni has convinced himself that whether to leave or stay in power is up to him. Meaning that he is totally indifferent to what the Constitution says about the two term tenure of president, or that he could be voted out in an election or kicked out in an insurrection. Two items in this statement fly in the face of this logic. First, if Museveni feels he has ultimate power to stay in power, why does he feel he could be pushed? Secondly, if he feels he is invulnerable, does his anxiety about those opposed to his perpetuation in power not reveal an inherent fear in him? Alternatively, we may assume that Museveni is presenting a negotiating position to those opposed to the so-called �third term�. The assumption here is that Museveni is saying �don�t push me and I�ll go�. His hope is that the opposition will say �okay we won�t push you� and hope that he would honour his pledge. Inherent in this interpretation are two points. First Museveni shifts the proverbial monkey to the opposition�s back, and two, there is the implied warning and threat. Museveni could be laying the ground for a post-2006 state along the lines of �If they (opposition) had not tried to push me I would have gone�. It is a vintage game theory position that demands two reactions. First, in a sort of flip-flop, we must weigh whether Museveni�s threat is believable, in which case it would be credible. Then we must question whether he stands to gain more or lose more in case his underlying offer to quit if not pushed is a bluff. Question one: If the opposition continues to push him, can Museveni succeed in clinging on to power? Question Two: If the opposition does not push him, does Museveni stand to gain or lose more by clinging onto power? Obviously, Museveni is frying very slippery fish here that begs the fundamental question: Does Museveni want to quit power in 2006 or not? Attempting to read the President�s mind by adopting, for example, Prof. Rachel Giora�s theory on salient meaning as articulated in her book �On our Mind� is not a mere academic exercise. It could expose an attempt by Museveni to exploit the fact that his statement may have different meanings to different people. Alternatively, one can apply the Semantic Differential technique on Museveni. In this case, if we understand Museveni�s mind to be saying: �I can cling to power�, we can compel him to face that reality by asking him: �What will happen if you cling on to power?� Museveni will have to ask himself, without recourse to his usual delusions of sacrifice and revolution, whether it serves him to stay on or quit. Of course, it must be tough for Museveni to answer such a question. His throng of praise singers led by his latest court-jester, the Vice-President, Gilbert Bukenya and chaperoned by his ever-green press secretary Mary Karooro Okurut, likes to publicly pronounce every grunt and groan from the President to be an act of benevolent wisdom. Now, to this bevy of praise-singers add a few pips that the president rightly deserves and you have a conviction of right that has been pronounced a vision by the oracle, Museveni, himself. Visionary indeed. Phew. Museveni may be right that those prancing up and down for a chance in the hot sit after him ala democracy may mess up his undeniable achievements. Yet his strategy to cling on to power is wrong. The illusion of his invincibility that it conjures is, in fact, not a vision but a delusion. No wonder the opposition Democratic Party have chanced on the perfect parallelism between Museveni�s aspiration to cling on to State House and those of Mobutu Ssese Seko, the late megalomaniac of Zaire (since renamed DR. Congo). Mobutu, as President, thought he had it all planned. He had stashed US $4 billion is secret accounts abroad, either banished or squashed all internal political opposition at home, and installed his son as commander of his army. In a word, he had made sure he is unbwoggable. But the natural course of human history had different and superior plans for him. Through the film that the DP are showing, I think they aim to make a singular point. Museveni will one day not be President of this country whether he is pushed or not. I have not watched the film of the late dictator that the DP are showing but I am convinced that President Museveni needs to watch it. If it is true to the history of Mobutu, it will have at the end, the dictator being entombed in an ignoble piece of unmarked dirty earth in the country of his exile. Mr Were is Training and Multimedia Editor of The Monitor |
� 2003 The Monitor Publications
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