In the immediate aftermath of the 2016 Presidential elections, the country was in sombre mood. The pre-election euphoria created by the Kizza Besigye camp was no more and his millions of supporters across the country felt raped, cheated, but above all helpless and hopeless. Curses were spewed from certain corners while others simply opted to move on with other aspects of life – after all life had to continue.
Amidst this sombre mood, the ‘victor’ Yoweri K. Museveni was bullish and dismissive of his competitors. While giving an interview to the press in his country home in Rwakitura, he gloated that by 2021, he would have wiped out the opposition. He was sure that Kizza Besigye was now a spent force after four unsuccessful attempts at the ballot. He saw no formidable force amongst what was then clearly a feeble opposition and I must add – he was sure that his old guard in NRM is sleeping away as the young turks are obsessed with amassing wealth, liquor and the pleasures of this world.
In the first six months of his new mandate, everything seemed to move according to his script. He dangled fat envelopes and juicy job offers to some opposition influencers and co-opted them to Government. Everything seemed to affirm that this land that was once a company of the Imperialist British establishment was now becoming a chiefdom of one man whose infancy is traced to Ntungamo [actual birthplace unknown].That man; Yoweri K. Tibuhaburwa Museveni.
Boom, out of a normal court ruling on an election petition came the Kyadondo East Constituency Parliamentary by-election and the chiefdom was never going to remain the same. Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu a.k.a Bobi Wine cut his political teeth in that by-election that took the country by storm. Fast forward to date (3 days to the Presidential election), he is the de-facto leader of anti-Museveni forces in Uganda. The young man has the pulse of the nation and any objective mind [and the gods of mathematics as well] will know that he would win and ascend to the Presidency if the process were to be free and fair. Unfortunately, the coming election is nothing less than a CHARADE. Yoweri Museveni has previously boasted about being a global leading expert in these matters of organising ‘elections’ – charades he meant!
Charade or not, on the international calendar, it is an election and here are a few insights that I wanted to share with you as we head into this charade.
1. Museveni never trails in an election he has organised.
The military strategist in Museveni always comes to the fore in the handling of election results transmission and broadcasting. Given the economic and structural dualism of the country, election results of Kampala metropolis would come in as early as an hour after closure of polling stations. There is no way on earth that Museveni can lead in the Kampala Metropolis.Therefore leaving processes to nature would mean that in any given election, he would begin by trailing in the provisional results received from the Kampala Metropolis. He has always [and will do this time] ensured that when the announcements of provisional results commences, the Kampala Metropolis’ results are not featured. His Electoral Commission always starts with the far-flung areas of Karamoja, South Western and the entire cattle corridor where Museveni enjoys a near-deity status and support.
In the 2016 charade, he went a notch higher by ensuring that the Kampala Metropolis did not receive voting materials until after 13h00! This was the highest form of contempt and impudence ever openly displayed to voters in Uganda. This was all in the name of ensuring that Museveni never trails in the provisional results. That is the golden rule. The Chairman of the EC has no say on that. It is Museveni’s point-man who serves as the Commission Secretary that is supposed to coordinate the observance of this golden rule together with the IT team of the Commission.
Of course, in order to counter this, the opposition needs to have at least an alternative tally centre that can be referenced by other election stakeholders. In the past, all efforts in this direction were ably thwarted by the Museveni machine. What remains to be seen is if the Kyagulanyi machine has taken care of this.
2. Bobi Wine has a machine that is more efficient than any that Museveni has ever faced.
On the evidence of what has transpired so far; pre-campaign and during the campaign, the Kyagulanyi machine seems to be more efficient and agile when compared to all the others that Museveni has faced before. First and foremost, they beat his intelligence system and bought out a political party. They have exposed the regime excesses fearlessly and faster than even the President has acknowledged as we saw with the case of Isaac Zebra Ssenyange’s extrajudicial murder. The Bobi Wine machine has also managed to ramp up emotions pre-election and nearly resulted in an overthrow of the mighty NRM Government on November 18th 2020 [am paraphrasing Museveni’s words]. If they could pull this off pre-election, then they are more efficient than all the previous machines that have tested Museveni.
Bringing in money into the country always proved so difficult for the Besigye campaigns in the past. Not with Kyagulanyi’s machine. They used various avenues that were not even detected by the Museveni intelligence machinery and as a result they have been able to shock Museveni at every turn.
Kyagulanyi will not be announced winner on the 16th of January 2021, but his political machine symbolises progression on the part of the oppressed people of Uganda. As we head into this charade of an election, Kyagulanyi has all the political capital there is to milk from the high tensions and anger of the populace. Let the will of God be done.
3. Holding Presidential and Parliamentary elections on the same day benefits Museveni more than those hoping to unseat him.
Any person that is familiar with the politics of this country knows that President Museveni has done everything possible to prevent his exit through the ballot. This means that the only logical way of getting him out of power is to either wait out for nature to take care of him or to chase him out using a popular uprising (insurrection). The former is largely in the hands of God while the latter is available to his competitors and political enemies. For any institution or group of people to spearhead the option of chasing Museveni out of power, there needs to be a unity and clarity of purpose. Just like it has been the case in the past with FDC and Kizza Besigye, many of the lieutenants of Kyagulanyi are of parasitic intentions i.e. they want to ride on his popularity and political brand to ascend to Parliament.
In the event of Kyagulanyi opting to contest a bangled Presidential election and use it to create momentum for a popular uprising, many of these lieutenants who will have won seats at the Parliamentary level will most likely coil their tails between their legs and disappear lest they postpone their opportunity to join the eating table. This therefore lowers the effectiveness of using the election as a precursor to a popular uprising to chase Museveni out of power. It is therefore of greater benefit to Museveni that the Presidential and Parliamentary charade and elections respectively are held concurrently. Whether it is by design or default is not the subject of debate today. In any case, it is a facet of the systemic rigging that defines the election charade in Uganda.
4. The rigging of elections in Uganda always starts from the Population census.
It is common sense that voter numbers are compared to demographic configurations of a country. Museveni quickly took advantage of this and had his men tinker with the census figures in 2014 and subsequent estimates to create for him a platform on which to rig elections. The feeble opposition in Uganda has never made any attempts to pressure the Uganda Bureau of Statistics into a forensic audit on these figures that it publishes. The superfluous populations in the cattle corridor are used to create a benchmark against which fake voter enrolments are pegged. The outcome of such can be seen when somebody tells you that the sparsely populated and rural Kiruhura district registers more voters on election day than the heavily and densely populated Mukono district. Until the opposition begins to dissect into such small details that seem detached from the election yet they influence the outcome, we might still be in for some more years of being referred to as Museveni’s chiefdom.
5. Like all fallen rulers, Museveni falsely believes that in the face of foreign interference, violence is the only way out.
Unlike all previous electoral contests, Museveni has severally alluded to a foreign hand in Bobi Wine’s campaign. While this may appear like ordinary escapism, the reality is that preliminary intelligence that Museveni received about Bobi Wine all pointed to external forces. Consequently, each time he sees Bobi Wine, he sees President Kagame, European Union and George Soros. This has turned into some kind of obsession and has prevented Museveni from dealing with Bobi Wine – the streetwise politician.
My considered opinion is that if Museveni has singled out Bobi Wine and known his streetwise character, he would better deal with him or even convince him into a political deal in the Museveni succession handbook. By refusing to understand and deal with the streetwise politician that is Bobi Wine, Museveni has missed a grand opportunity [and possibly] the last for a peaceful exit from power.
I am not going to vote on Thursday in a bid to retain my conscience and freedom of mind. I voted for the first time and for the late Gen. Benon Biraaro as President in 2016. I do not see any changes to the conduct of elections that guarantees a different outcome. It has always been said that if you do the same thing over and over expecting different results, then you are mad.
To those of you that are going to vote, I wish you the very best and you can count on me for any other Plan.
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