POLITICAL ALLIANCE 2016
The Democratic Alliance (TDA) has been able to galvanize
many opposition figures from different political parties. It is debatable
whether all those who signed into it will respect the TDA protocol through this
elections and thereafter.
However, it is essential
for the TDA operators to distribute clear signals to the voters with clarity in
the objectives, composition, formation, and other relevant expectations of the
TDA players. For now, a major contradiction is abounding, such as Mr. Amama
Mbabazi’s membership of it.
We have to recognize that the TDA is an alliance of
mainstream opposition, citizens, and civil society organizations that have
struggled against bad governance. Mr. Mbabazi should not be treated as the
Prince of this struggle at all.
There are patterns world over, where broad political
coalitions have mobilized and converged sharply
disaggregated political tendencies. Much of those successes were constructed by
astutely galvanizing shared aspirations and abundant will for change among the
peoples. However, such alliance must serve the common interest of those who are
genuinely aspiring for a change, not those driving for change of guards.
The misgivings that many of us have towards Mr. Mbabazi is
that he refuses to get down of his high NRM horse. Even when the anti-opposition
forces he once built are fully mobilized against him, Mr. Mbabazi still clamors
to uphold the absurd NRM orthodoxy.
Many people will get disappointed if Mr. Mbabazi becomes the
TDA flag bearer. Mr. Mbabazi’s record of accomplishment in creating horrible
laws is evident, and prominent as the nose on the face. If we want to move
Uganda from the NRM culture and tradition of bad laws, we should not be working
with the grandfather of bad laws towards this change. With his record aloofness
and remoteness, Mr. Mbabazi is not about to experience a Saul – Paul transformation.
Such an attempt would risk swinging him through a Saul-Paul-Saul cycle, at the
best.
Mr. Mbabazi comes to TDA with no following other than the assumed
crowd and speculation about his wealth. My conscience is clear that many would
be comfortable if Mr. Mbabazi were to stay behind the scenes, to help advance
the causes of change. His loyalty to change requires rigorous testing. Otherwise,
Mr. Mbabazi cannot be the change that we want.
In that aspect, I find a discrepancy in the TDA in inviting
a proven superstar tyrant and an engineer of intolerance from the very repressive
regime to join it. How can we imagine a
post Museveni with Mr. Mbabazi at the helm? It is like giving credit to a tyrant
for demonstrating his skills in repressing a society, and robbing it too. How
desperate are we?
At some point, Ugandans will wake up to ask those tough
questions of “why Mbabazi?” This also gets me to the point where the struggle
for change in Uganda should not be about removing President Museveni. It should
focus on a more superior ideal of total overhaul in economic, social, and
political conditions capable of moving Uganda to her rightful place in time. It
is about liberation from one-man’s pillaging of a Nation to allowing real functional
power returned to the people of Uganda. I do not see Mr. Mbabazi fitting that
credential given his clamour to the NRM orthodoxy and his 42 years’ record of
accomplishment.
This election is an indictment of Mr. Mbabazi’s NRM and its
draconian laws including vote rigging. He
cannot therefore come to represent NRM in TDA. That is a travesty of the causes
of change! In that respect, the TDA should engage both JPAM and Gen. Sejusa in
advisory capacity to overcome election rigging, since both masterminded the
vice while in the NRM bind. Such details of election manipulation should become
part of the electoral reform schema. Surely, Mr. Mbabazi is no Prince of the struggle
even if he has money.
END
