| Kampala
When Napoleon, the leader of Animal Farm, was
metamorphosing into a dictator, he said he was following the
farm's constitution which had been reduced into Seven
Commandments.
To justify the liquidation of animals
perceived to be opposed to his regime, Napoleon amended the
"No animal shall kill another animal" commandment to read: "No
animal shall kill another animal without cause". He argued
that he was following the Seven Commandments decided on by the
animals on the farm.
And the majority of the animals,
who could not remember properly the difference between the
original commandment and the new one, thought it was one and
the same and they believed Napoleon was right and still
working within the confines of the constitution.
When
he and his fellow pigs started sleeping in beds contrary to
the Seven Commandments, he amended the "No animal shall sleep
in bed" commandment to "No animal shall sleep in bed with
bedsheets".
The ruling pigs' chief propagandist
Squealer explained that the commandment was only against "
bedsheets" because even the stalls where other animals were
sleeping were actually beds. He argued that since the pigs
were not using "sheets" in bed, they had not offended any of
the seven commandments. The animals accepted.
Amendments
The above scenarios are
relevant to the prevailing politics in Uganda.
Like
Napoleon, it is President Museveni's decision to amend Article
105 (2) of Uganda's constitution, which provides that "no
president shall serve more than two terms. He wants to amend
it so that it reads "No president shall serve more than two
terms unless he has performed well". He is like saying the
term limits should only affect non-performing presidents.
That is why you hear the Movement cadres say Museveni
should get a third term because he has performed well - as if
when the Constituent Assembly delegates were making the term
limits, they feared Museveni would not perform.
Museveni
is fond of the "people have decided" when actually it is
entirely his decision. Then he turns around to say it's the
people who decided that he should stand and therefore he has
no choice but to comply.
Excuses
After the removal of
presidential term limits, we shall soon start hearing that
"people" from this and that district have urged Museveni to
stand again. Museveni will then declare he did not want to
stand but due to public demand, and his commitment never to
betray the wishes of the "people," he has been constrained to
seek re-election.
Because of our weak civil society
which is predominantly peasant, presidents of developing
countries do not derive their power from the people. They only
use the people to rubberstamp or legitimise their dictatorial
decisions.
So it is not true whatsoever that Museveni
derives power from the people as he keeps telling the country.
He only uses the "people" to justify his actions, but they
matter little to him in as far as political decisions are
concerned.
When the President was condemning political
parties as satanic, the Movement people were saying the same
thing. In 2003 when Museveni changed his mind, for political
expedience, and said parties were not bad and should be freed,
all the Movement cadres also changed and said parties were
good and justified to operate freely.
In Uganda people
follow presidents; it's not the presidents who follow the
people. When Idi Amin overthrew Obote in 1971, the people
praised him as a nationalist. When he was toppled in 1979,
they condemned him as a dictator. In 1980 when Obote rigged
the elections and became president, the people praised him as
a democrat and condemned Museveni and his NRA guerrillas for
going to the bush without cause. But when Museveni captured
power in 1986, the same people welcomed him as a liberator and
cursed Obote as a despot.
Condemnation
The same people that are
flattering Museveni today to amend the constitution so that he
stands for a third term "because without him Uganda would be
doomed", would be the first to condemn him for breaking the
constitution if he was overthrown. And they would welcome his
ouster with cheers and his successor with flowers. So forget
about "the people want me" theory. They just follow the
president.
In 1986 when Museveni's then National
Resistance Movement guerrillas captured power, they said the
NRM was a transitional government which would pave way for
full multiparty democracy in the country. The people believed
and followed the president's pronouncement. In 1989, without
consulting any person, Museveni and his Movement colleagues
extended their term for four years, saying they wanted to
complete their programmes.
No consultation
While addressing
students at Mbarara High School that year, the late Maj.
Victor Bwana, the District Administrator for Mbarara at that
time, was asked why the NRM had extended their office term. He
replied that when NRM was coming to power in 1986, they did
not consult anybody, so if they wanted to extend their rule,
they did not need to consult anyone either.
That was
Bwana's version, but it reflected the true NRM's position. The
official version was that the NRM had extended its term to
finish their programme. The NRM claimed the "people" had
accepted through the NRC , that the NRM tenure be extended.
Obviously the extension of office tenure was not the people's
decision, it was NRM's and Museveni's. So NRM and the people,
who was following the other?
From 1990 Museveni and the
Movement cadres started changing their talk. They stopped
calling the NRM a transition government and started calling it
a political system where people contested for elective
positions on individual merit.
By the Constitutional
making process 1993-95, the Movement had succeeded in
cultivating these lies in the whole country and made a bigger
part of the population to falsely believe the NRM was actually
a system. Then from nowhere, the NRM subtracted the "National
Resistance" and retained only the "Movement". On the strength
of this alone, the NRM, which had been a political transition,
was renamed a political system and it was stated in the
constitution as such. What a deceptive definition!
The
people, especially the peasants, who could not understand the
difference between National Resistance Movement (the
transition government) and the Movement (so-called political
system), thought this difference in the mere volume of words
constituting the Movement, was enough for the Movement to
become a system.
It was put in the constitution that
while the Movement was still in power no other political
system would prevail until the people again decided otherwise
in a referendum. All these capricious definitions of the NRM
were machinations of Museveni and his cadres, but only using
the "people" as an instrument.
Too many Movements
Some people know
NRMO, others know NRM while there is also the Movement
(plain).
All the three parties are headed by Museveni and
his supporters don't know which party they should register
with. That's why his cadres like Kakooza Mutale are finding it
difficult to explain away this circus to the peasants in the
villages like in Luweero.
Museveni is re-writing history
as the first president in the world, as one legislator once
said, to form an opposition party against his own
government.
Ah! Museveni and his "people" theory is a good
folktale.
The author can be reached on 077431939 or
[EMAIL PROTECTED] | 
