CONSTITUTIONAL AMMENDMENT
The year 2014 ended
dramatically and with political ruckus in NRMO Party. Three characters
dominated news in the last months of the 2014; President Museveni, Amama
Mbabazi and the Four Stars General, David Sejusa aka Tinyefuza.
The year 2014 also
got Mr. Museveni to demonstrate his characteristic trait of revolutionary patience
especially with internal dissent, but responded with a reciprocated show of the
mastery of Uganda’s political arena. The way President Museveni has played his
cards in the face of his adversaries reaffirmed that none of his contemporaries
actually know the President or understand fully how he conceptualizes society.
He also demonstrated that his politics is about self preservation and longevity,
after-all, success of a politician is measured his inherent ability to dominate
others in contested social, physical and political spaces.
We learnt quickly
that the President understands political economy differently – the man has idealized
the use of resources to dismantle his opponents decisively. But in his end of
year maneuvers, the President also demonstrated that no one person in his Party
or in Uganda can challenge him as an individual, more-so, with weak financial
muscles. His, is the art of meticulous organizing, duplicity, resource
mobilization, isolating his adversaries, and subsequently devouring the
opponents naturally.
Mr. Amama Mbabazi
became an exemplar, albeit an expensive one who cost the Party and the Nation,
a whooping 76 billion shillings, going by The Observer’s estimates (refer to:
The cost of neutralizing Mbabazi, Dec 28, 2014). Here, we learnt something spectacular– that if you want to extract money from President
Museveni, even for repairing potholes, fixing bridges or a broken sewer system, just threaten his
stronghold on power and he will break the bank to neutralize you!
The second and most
unusual patience was extended to the innately impulsive renegade Gen. David Sejusa.
Many commentators have called on the regime to discipline this man who has
broken all laws but is still at large, making partisan political statements in
the media – a wrong platform for serving Officers, we were told. The army has
tried to tell us that they have no ground for arresting the General. This
failure or rather lackadaisical response also shows the double standard of
application of military code of conduct and the limit of much coveted professionalism
of this UPDF.
We recall that in
2005 Brigadier Tumukunde was charged for making public statement contrary to
military code of conduct. Prior to that, the now retired Colonel Dr Kiiza Besigye
in 2000/2001 suffered hell on earth for speaking straight to the powers. Given
the two examples, we can say that Gen. Sejusa has received differential
treatment as if he serves in a different army than the UPDF.
One question that lingers
in our minds is why has the army and their Commander-in-Chief tip-toed around
Gen. Sejusa?
There could be only few plausible explanations; one is to make the
General’s purported political clout to get deflated so he can fizzle out
quickly to oblivion. This option though is politically astute, also sets bad precedence
for the army and challenges the very notion of its professionalism and non-partisan
image that the Army Spokespersons always parrot about. Another possible explanation is that President
Museveni is playing tribal cards where he is too afraid to touch Sejusa else he
irritates the Bahiima and his Tutsi bases in the army, security and western
Uganda. Lastly, the President desperately would like to use Sejusa to occupy
and galvanize productive spaces that the Opposition should be filling heading
towards the treacherous 2016.
Any political analyst
would predict that Uganda will pay dearly for these random acts of benevolence
that the President is demonstrating. After nominating Mbabazi to the CEC, I
predict that the President’s next major political move is to amend the 1995 Constitution
to remove the Presidential age limit Art.102(b) to allow his life Presidency
project to sail through.
END
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