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Without Mincing Words
Andrew M. Mwenda |
NRM has won not one but two battles
Nov 21, 2004
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This week, Parliament met to discuss a petition by Odonga Otto regarding the creation of a select committee to investigate the Shs5 million bribe-scandal that has rocked the country over the last three weeks. Amidst fistfights, verbal duels and finger pointing, the matter was put to a vote. The government (or NRM) side got 106 votes while the opposition a paltry 33 votes. This is an indicator of things to come. The biggest issue in Parliament is going to be amendment of the Constitution to remove term limits on the presidency. The NRM needs 204 votes to carry the day. So far, 213 MPs with voting powers have picked the cash, putting the NRM in a smiling position especially if they can ensure an open vote on the matter. So far, therefore, the NRM has won, and the opposition has lost, two battles.
As I watched the outplay on the floor of Parliament from the discomfort of the public gallery, I could see the weaknesses of the opposition, especially the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC). The opposition made impressive arguments in favour of a parliamentary committee to investigate the scandal, while the NRM presented a very pathetic case. Unfortunately for the opposition, democracy is a game of numbers. When they lost the vote, the opposition MPs were visibly lost, unable to come to terms with the fact that they had been beaten. The NRM organised its shy members many of whom did not turn up because of the shame of taking the Shs 5 million bribe but managed to get 106 to be present. On the other hand, the opposition was only able to bring 33 of its sympathisers, which means it did little to rally its troops. From discussions on the floor of Parliament, the weaknesses of the FDC and the wider opposition became apparent to me. The FDC, which forms the most credible opposition to the NRM, is led by politicians who believe in the power of reason, and less in the power of organisation. One of their key leaders, Mr Augustine Ruzindana, never tires telling his audience that "we are on the right side of history". Unfortunately, for the opposition, political outcomes are not determined by reason but by organisation. Thus, although the opposition had a clear upper hand in debate, the NRM had what was needed - the numbers. The rest is positive morality, and politics is less about morality. The opposition needed to put up a more spirited fight of numbers in order to win over the many doubting MPs. With only 33 votes, they looked a miserable lot. Then a question kept disturbing my mind: if the opposition cannot mobilise about 75 of its loyal troops to bolster it on a critical vote, how is it going to mobilise a majority of over 12 million Ugandan voters to support its candidate in the 2006 presidential elections? As commentators on the political process, we have been too busy exposing the corruption, incompetence and violence of the government and been a little generous to the opposition. The opposition in Uganda should not think that they could win the majority in this country by simply shouting wolf at President Museveni's scarecrow. They need to move away from making political capital based on negative legitimacy (i.e. the failures of the NRM-Museveni government) to making concrete proposals on what future they want for Uganda. Indeed, the more fascinating thing is how far Mr Museveni has travelled. When he first proposed the constitutional amendment to get himself a presidency for life, it sounded completely unacceptable. If the matter were put to a referendum then, he could not have won even 30 percent, and in Parliament, not even 10 percent. Regardless of the morality of the methods he has employed to bolster his support for a presidential monarchy, Museveni has built a national base to win it through a referendum and sweep Parliament. All this thanks to his opponents: when the political momentum was in their favour, the opposition was busy squabbling over non-issues. Even when they formed a merger, they spent so much time haggling over nothing. Question: what policy differences were really there between Pafo and Reform Agenda for them not to agree on a merger within one day other than who gets which job? Do they disagree on privatisation, liberalisation, controlling inflation, the environment, UPE, decentralisation, private sector-led growth or what? Witnessing the debate in Parliament, I was even forced to ask myself whether it is possible to achieve a democratic political dispensation in a poor country like Uganda. There I was looking at the Speaker of Parliament, Edward Ssekandi, trying to rig the debate in favour of government. His conduct was predictable since he was a beneficiary of the Shs5 million NRM bribe. How could you have a hyena preside over a case to determine the fate of the meat market? The opposition MPs stood up and shouted at the Speaker and said many nasty words against him but Ssekandi held his ground. At one time he abandoned moderating the debate and became a debater himself. Then I looked at the "honourables" who had gotten the Shs5 million. Some are decent men and women and I wondered how they got sucked into this mess. But many others like Hope Mwesigye clearly looked like vultures around an animal carcass. Some people are wondering how Uganda under Museveni came to this. But it could never have gotten anywhere else. Looking down at the floor of Parliament, I saw a queue of peasants wearing second-hand suits from Owino market sitting as MPs. And then I wondered why anyone would be surprised that you can sell a national constitution at a paltry Shs 5 million. Judas Iscariot got a better deal of 30 pieces of silver (in its purchasing power equivalent today) to trade off the Son of God Jesus Christ himself. Shs5 million for a stranded peasantry is enough money to sell the nation. A friend at one of the western embassies in Kampala once told me that it costs $150 to buy the most classified state intelligence from Ugandan security personnel. At $2,500, the MPs are more expensive to buy. Museveni's political brinkmanship now rivals only that of Marshal Mobutu Sese Seko of former Zaire, whom I think Kaguta's son must be looking back to with admiration. Museveni is a brilliant student of our country's social structure and understands that power goes - not to the most noble - but the most cunning. How could it be that a political organisation, in whose name so many people shed their blood, could capture power on the basis of high ideals and then degenerate into a cash-and-carry government? How come that such decent men and women lost an organisation to which they had devoted all their lives to sharks who only joined yesterday? As a nation, we need to be more honest about our situation and answer these questions. For in the answers to them, we will be able to understand how Museseveni, Obote, Idi Amin or even people like Daniel arap Moi, Mobutu and Samuel Doe managed to reign on this continent. |
� 2004 The Monitor Publications
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