Academics tell us that political settlement in Uganda, under President Yoweri Museveni is moving away from being a “development coalition” to that of a more volatile “weak dominant party”. Coming to power in Uganda in 1986, the National Resistance Movement (NRM) successfully included elites in business, the administration, and traditional leadership, as well as the mass-es through its nationwide grassroots organisation. With the military at all times central to the political settlement, economic and political stability was achieved, healthy economic growth rates posted and considerable social development achievements made.
This has been breaking down in Uganda since the late 1990s, with the “weak dominant party” increasingly under pressure. This has seen it resorting to both short term patronage — President Museveni rarely appears without handing out cash — and the thuggish intimidation of the op-position. This is how the now veteran opposition leader Kizza Besigye and the new pretender Amama Mbabazi both found themselves in police detention 9 July. Just under three weeks earlier, General David Sejusa was arrested in the city centre and detained for some hours. Besigye and Mbabazi’s arrests were what is termed “preventive detention, to prevent them attending rallies they had allegedly planned. These detentions — Besigye was detained numerous times five years ago — are intimate affairs. Usually a high ranking officer who would be known to the detainee leads the operation and is sometimes the one to lay a hand on the shoulder and in effect make the arrest. The police’s Director of Operations arrested Mbabazi.
Besigye has been on the outside since 1999, when he first publicly opposed President Museveni’s rule. General Sejusa wants change for Uganda, but has no organisation and no allies in the armed forces. All three have been President Museveni’s intimates — Besigye was his physician during the war. But for President Museveni and the NRM, the move by Mbabazi to seek the NRM nomination is more important.
Mbabazi was President Museveni’s right hand man right up to 2014, and was expected to be his successor, after the 2016 Uganda elections, which were widely believed — or hoped by some — to be the president’s last election. In June he declared his intention to challenge President Museveni for the NRM nomination. Again, the response was intimate and, within hours, he was summoned to State House for a closed door meeting with President Museveni.
Mbabazi’s chances of getting the NRM nomination are almost non-existent. But he must judge that he has some support within the party to create an impression in the primaries. But he will have to endure much worse than an afternoon’s detention that did not even crease his suit. More intimidation will follow. If he can withstand that, he will need to mobilise, likely in train with other opposition figures, to lead a credible opposition. Whether similarly ambitious men like Besigye and Sejusa — Besigye has endured much — are willing to stand aside is far from clear.
this article was taken from our East Africa Politics & Security publication. If you wish to discuss the contents of this article and receive a complimentary copy of the report, then please contact us.
