A reflection on violent NRM Primaries

ELECTION VIOLENCE

The just concluded NRM primaries were eye openers upon which, 2016 political actors should reflect on as we head to the general elections. The manner in which these primaries were conducted revealed a lot of absurdity about the democratic credentials of NRM. Obviously, the first casualty of the primaries was its own internal democracy.

 

While the spin doctors want to paint the chaos that marred these elections as a sign of the party's popularity in the country, civil people with low tolerance for violence would think otherwise. The chaos, to many, reflected the inherent nature of NRM, and the false internal cohesion.

 

Many people look up to the NRM, not as a political Party with an appealing ideology. They look at it as a cash-cow, or a milk machine to extort Uganda.  To them, NRM is the assured platform for personal aggrandizement through plundering national resources.

 

Therefore, any opportunity to board that bus, is one to kill for. None of those violent people are inherently violent, nor are the violent acts we witnessed, random. Those people are conditioned to partake violence through endurance of depravity.

 

Museveni's NRM operates using carrot and sticks methods. If you support the Party, you may gain access to national resources – not Party resources. The Party is fused with the state from its neck downwards. The closer you are to the temple of power, the higher the probability of grabbing on the milking machine.

 

The second victim of the primaries are common-sense and civility – the severe lack of basic principle of courtesy due to endemic distrust between the eating class and euphoric enthusiasts. Even calm and sober people were ready to rip each other apart like wild animals, just to win. The glaring lack of order in this Party is jaw-dropping. No institution functions independent of Museveni, and efficiently.

The third and most important of all was a revelation of impunity, callousness and debauchery. All the vices associated with previous national elections became manifest in this elections. The magnitude of ballot stuffing was simply shocking. Social media was awash with video clips of young men pre-ticking ballots.

The fourth victim was integrity of elections. Strangely, candidates in some parts of the country had the opportunity to transport their own ballot materials from the Police station. The word irregularity does not even capture this particular madness enough. But the picture of the Police officer in uniform, casting his ballot, could not have salvaged the image of the Police as an impartial force. Opprobriously.

When Deputy Speaker Jacob Oulanya decried that the Party "bit more than it could chew" for this elections, one would think otherwise. This Party has a fully fledged Secretariat, staffed to the teeth. Its Electoral Commission is funded lavishly and in excess. The EC has not complained of lack of money, transport , or staffing. What could have gone wrong?

 

Here again we look at this as the continuity of the grand inefficiencies prevalent in all government institutions; the incompetence, the inattention to details, the arrogance, corruption, and culture of taking everything for granted while flourishing on titles – (arrivalism).

 

In short, the NRM EC exhibited incompetence and inexperience. These vices feature in the general elections. 

 

In the NRM primaries, we saw how numbers were victimized. In many polling stations, ballot papers were inadequate. In some areas, there were mysterious candidates, others omitted, or not listed on the ballot papers. This shows clearly that the EC was in total disarray - incompetent, uncoordinated, or negligent. 

 Above all, this primaries goes down as the most chaotic elections ever held in Uganda's history.

END.

The tainted conscience of a tyranny

VERACITY AND FIDELITY

In Ethics, Veracity is the principle of truth telling. It is grounded in valuing and respecting a person and concept of autonomy. In any society that victimizes the truth, untruth is institutionalized. With it, the respect for the person and autonomy are trampled upon at will.

There has been a sustained debate as to whether President Museveni and his NRM have the conscience or credential for democracy when they openly advance untruths about their false democratic ideals. Evidences available from the rampant run-ins with the Opposition groups evinces the stark realities of a tainted conscience of a tyranny.

The Webster dictionary defines conscience as "part of the mind that allows you to be aware of your actions as being either morally right or wrong", or, a "feeling that something you have done, or about to do, is morally right or wrong". Every conscientious person has a clarity based on their values and the valuing of the other except those in power. 

When a leader deliberately perpetuate untruths, then such a leader lacks respect for the subjects.  Such a leader is an obscurantist – someone whose trade is to obscure, manipulate the truth. The fundamental drive of such willy-nilly obscurantism is to perpetuate control over. But it may also arise out of innate sense of inadequacy and incessant desire for approval by others.

Naturally, it is diabolical to expect that a life of untruth, can magically transform into inverse outcomes. Obscurantism generates chaos because obscurantists are difficult to understand, and are most likely to be understood by only a few people. They are a mystery of sort - impossible to know completely or with certainty. 

The Philosopher, Thomas Aquinas, maintained that a judgement is true when it conforms to an external reality.

A society presided over by an obscurantist operates under chaos, turmoil, disorder, disarray to obscure the external realities. This article has not explored the role of social chaos as a mode of social control, and its effectively in Uganda. However, the cost of sustaining a regime of chaos has been costly. The high corruption is a form of payment to sustain this state of anarchy. The constant erosion of the conscience of Ugandans to everything collective and the steady decay in public service, or widespread apathy to government speaks for themselves.

Further, the concept of truth is complex and dynamic. Truth itself is characteristically relational to some portion of reality – metaphysics. This is the vain exploit of the obscurantist leader, for his/her construct of reality is mutually opposed to objective realities of his subjects.

The principle of Veracity is interlinked with that of Fidelity – being, or showing faithfulness to a person, cause, or belief. Nations that develop, and whose citizens are patriotic, have emerged from a firm founding, and numerous of its social contracts are replete with basic principles of veracity and fidelity. Veracity and Fidelity are conscientiously embedded in societal discourses. When such a situation obtains, citizens feel an overwhelming sense of satisfaction, comfort, trust, commitment and pride and become accountable to the collective.

The youths of such a nation willingly sacrifice their lives to sustain the integrity of such a society. The elders of such a society would openly embrace the valour of their youths as worthy and befitting. In a just system, there is everything to protect, everything to exalt.

In these regards, one sees very little value in the NRM abraded democracy packaged as "regular elections". Paradoxically, the magnitude of restraining forces that are employed against the process, undermines the integrity of subsequent government. The selective application of repressive laws such as Public Order Management Act to curtail, humiliate, cow, and immobilize the Opposition, only illustrates how undemocratic and obscurantist, this regime and its leaders are. Certainly, the Police brutality confirms the unfortunate circumstance of a tainted conscience of a regime of chaos.

END

Uganda's Opposition Hands are tied behind the back

UNEVEN FIELDS

It is truly absurd how the Uganda Police is acting to hamper the democratic process leading to 2016 general elections. At the current manner of Operations and the operating laws such as POMA, we all agree that the Opposition have both their hands tied behind their backs.  The Police is violating the fundamental principles of Free and Fair environment associated supportive of a healthy democracy. It is important for the operators of the state to be reminded that half a democracy is not democracy at all. You cannot place a man's feet on fire, his head in a bucket of ice, his hands tied behind his back, and conclude that the man is averagely OK. Those kind of skewed analyses are better left for statisticians, not democrats.

In the last couple of months, the NRM candidates campaigned in the countryside willy-nilly. Last week, the lack of internal democracy in the Party resulted in a pandemonium at every polling station of NRM countrywide. In fact, all the malpractices attributed to previous general elections manifested. There were numerous cases of ballot stuffing with pre-ticked balloting. In Masaka, one respondent observed huge envelops of pre-ticked ballots being stuffed in the box. The rigging were so severe that results were openly switched, such that the losers became winners.

As a result, the voters rioted. NRM cards were torn, burned, peed upon or fed to the pigs; Museveni's campaign posters were torn and peed on. NRM offices were torched down and even the home of one NRM official in Luwero was gutted down by an irate NRM Arsonist.

While all these are happening in the country, the absence of the riot Police or its brutality were well noticed. The irate NRM crowd rioted undeterred until they cooled down on their own accord. Last week, the NTV captured the people in Luwengo District castigating their Chairman there. They burnt his effigies and beat up unarmed Police and agents of the Luwengo LCV who attempted to interfere.

In all these chaos and pandemonium of savagery proportion, you do not find riot police or the kind of Police macho seen around peaceful Opposition groups. Nothing!

Events of last week were near tragedy; the Police's attempted assassination of Dr Kiiza Besigye and the Leader of the Opposition were the highlights. The undressing of the women activists cast the Police in shameful shade. Then they went into fits of action, arresting the Opposition leaders for trying to establish their campaign offices. The images of Hon. Ibrahim Ssemuju Nganda with his torn suit and face behind bars; and those of  Dr Kiiza Besigye in jail conjured up an indelible legacy of undisputed tyranny for this regime.

For posterity's sake, nowhere in the history of Uganda, or Sub-Sahara Africa has a regime inhibited its Opposition and humiliated women of its nation like this NRM regime. The environment continues to exclude those with divergent views from the governance of this country. I fear excessively that if this Police brutality continues, the masses will decide to retaliate and a blood-bath will ensue.

The Electoral Commission and the Police are playing monkey games to deny the Opposition time to select its flag bearers in the lower levels of government. The Police's deliberately demands that Opposition seeks permission to campaign, or to cause a campaign gathering. This is a violation, and criminal act by the Police. The exercising of POMA during election period must be interpreted by a competent court. This is stifling our democracy. POMA already took away citizen's freedoms and handed it to the state. There must be a limit or an exception to it's application during elections. Fundamental human rights should not be subject to the State for dispensation. It is criminal. Rights are inalienable and should be protected by the state, not curtailed or dispensed by it. The Opposition groups should rethink the worth of soldiering on against a tyranny with both their hands tied behind their back.

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Contextualizing Uganda Police's bias under Gen Kayihura

POLICE BIAS

The Uganda Police Force’s gruesome arrests and interferences in the internal processes of the Opposition Forum for Democratic Change Party must be scrutinized and contextualized. The Uganda Police is partisan and smacks of sheer politicization of crime. This is the agenda for which Gen Kayihura, the Inspector General of Police, has gained reputation.

It is simply dumfounding for the Police to conduct atrocities on peaceful civilian population - breaking peaceful processions, curtailing basic human rights, killing innocent citizens -  and then turn around, in a rather comical twist, to blame it on their helpless victims. Where is this nation’s conscience?

The manner in which Ms Fatuma Naigaga Zainab was arrested, stripped and humiliated on Masaka Road, must draw outrage.  The Officers, who illegally curtailed the liberty of Dr Kiiza Besigye’s entourage, ought to face arrest. This Police's act of bundling every suspect, into the truck typifies “panda gari”, brutality, cruelty and outright crime against the sanctity of the body, mind and spirit. We should not expect, and sustain a twenty-second century Police to degenerate into such an unconscionable monster.

It is important to contextualize this overindulgence of the UPF in politics since Gen. Kayihura has made it clear that the Police will be the one to shape the election process and its outcome.

Towards the end of 2014 when the NRM expunged its Secretary General, Mbabazi, from its system, the Mbabazi lawyers threatened to sue the NRM Party and the person of the President for many illegalities arising out of that process. Many NRM cadres were awed at how ruthless their Chairman was, given the firm, swift, moreover expensive undertaking to rid Mbabazi off the NRMO administration.

The one voice that largely went unnoticed as usual was that of the Vice President, Hon. Edward Ssekandi. Hon. Ssekandi was quoted in the media to have advised the NRM delegates and various Party Organs to leave everything in the hands of President Musevenit because, according to the VP, President Museveni is experienced in operating outside the law.

This observation confirmed that at least, there is one person who has spent some time to study President Museveni’s operations. Since his Fronasa days, President Museveni worked outside the laws of Uganda. When President Museveni lost elections in nearly all Police barracks in 1996, he dismissed the Police Force as an extension of the Obote and Colonial regimes. He promised to fix the Police with NRM cadres.

Thereafter, attention was focused on the Police from the time of IGP Cossy Odomel to Kisembo until the start of militarization of the Police by the appointment of the then Major General Wamala Katumba as IGP.

President Museveni had predicted that it would become increasingly hard to over indulge the military in Uganda’s elections.  He opted to repair the image of the UPDF by transferring UPDF roles in election rigging to the militarized Police.

Museveni had many cadres for the job. He had either Gen Kale Kayihura,  or the then Brig. Henry Tumukunde, the renowned and seasoned campaigner for the President, who prides himself as an expert in winning votes in Jinja, Iganda and Kamuli (Operation JIK). Museveni chose the latter.

In essence, the Uganda Police under Kayihura is an extension of the army, both in ideological orientation and physical make-up. It is unfortunate, but Uganda has no civil Police as recommended in Art 212 of the 1995 Constitution (As amended).

In August, the Director of Human Resources of the Police, Andrew Felix Kaweesi revealed that the 80% of the officers in the Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department are incompetent (and, in fact criminals) (Ref: DM 28/08/2015). This revelation is important for us to understand how such a large proportion of Police is incompetent, while the political stream that terrorizes civilians and curtails fundamental liberties remains vicious. It simply confirms that this Police Force is primed purposely to safeguard the political interests of NRMO.

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Replenishing the Conscience of a defiant leader

REPLENISHING CONSCIENCE

Mr. Andrew Mwenda’s piece, "About our collective delusions" in the Independent is worth reading. The mainstay of this Dr. Besigye invective was that KB has become so bitter over time from experiences of humiliation and torture by the regime. Mwenda argued that this bitterness blinded KB from recognizing the progress made by the NRM, thereby compromising KB’s ability to correctly assess the current state of affairs. As such, KB has personalized the struggles for change, in the process, lost his edge in articulating attractive alternative policies for a post Museveni Uganda. Mwenda concludes that KB is empty in both rhetoric, and vision.

Mwenda would agree that a political cooperation like TDA devoid of genuine commitment, trust, and respect is a marriage that does not yield lasting affection. Such dishonesty, perhaps,  is one of the reasons the history of failed Political Alliances precedes Besigye.

The montage that is ferociously driving Hon. Amama Mbabazi's (JPAM) candidature, believes that The Democratic Alliance will hold sway merely on political blustering. The individual Opposition Parties in TDA, have struggled to forge unity in-house. Definitely they lack credentials to hold TDA together as a government-in-the-waiting. They have to restrain their affectations towards Dr Kiiza Besigye who is still a formidable force in the change narratives and in TDA.

Presenting KB as the dead weight in the change equation is a big mistake. In fact, TDA is shaping itself under the dead weight of JPAM with many “unknown knowns”, and a strong resentment in the North.

For that, I find Mwenda's trepidations conceivable, given its various contradictions.

Note that revolutions are inspired by personal ambitions shaped within personalized worldviews. These worldviews are constructed out of events that shape personal values, and ideals (conscience). Therefore, being a Change Agent starts with the person, because that role commits one – personally - to the change process and/or its perils. When revolutionists suffer tragedy, it takes a personal toll. It is such personal experiences that compound into personal convictions to shape, reaffirm, and drive their ideology.

Extra-ordinary struggler, like Nelson Mandela only dealt with the tensions between the personal and public expectations differently. Three parts to a struggle require tremendous balance for one to stay afloat; individual level - one has a family; at organizational level - one has to struggle to remain on top of conflicting ideals; and at the national level - one stands against a monstrous tyranny. This stage requires the shrewdness to galvanize diverse sentiments for change to occur. Therefore, indulgence in a revolution starts with the personal – espousing the ideals, articulating it, and mobilizing the masses.

In essence, Mwenda raises critical issues against KB that should strengthen KB's resolve to be part of the change, and realign him to the struggle that he helped to shape. To students of revolution, such experiences are a commonplace, and signify a difficult growth process from a part-time agent into the crux of it. Agents become impersonal at full submission to the struggle. This is characterized by giving the self wholly to the struggle to become impersonal. Nelson Mandela staked his family (personal) by choosing incarceration for 26 years because at that point, he had become impersonal. The lesson here is that to become impersonal to a revolution, one has to endure a process of personalization first. Personalization is about replenishing the individual’s conscience.

My defence of KB stems from three fundamental experiences: One, in recognizing that Ugandans are fond of radical spontaneity - ideas that explodes and dies fast. Flirting with JPAM, who has not presented any attractive alternative policy options - as Mwenda demands of KB - is just that adrenalin rush moment for contradictions. It is about instant gratification. This speaks badly for a protracted struggle towards a fundamental change. Two, the politics of vote numbers, make KB an important factor in the change equation. Three, ceding Opposition gains at the grassroots to NRM Go - Forward is returning Uganda to a No-Party System.