This week Professor Venansius Baryamureeba threw his hat
into the presidential race.
For those who know him, this has not come as a surprise.
While on the face of it Baryamureeba is not a front runner, his action is an
interesting one given our country’s political history.
This running on individual merit is a “creation” of this
administration.
"When the NRM took power in 1986, while they were militarily credible they were politically thin on the ground. This is not to say that they did not have a lot of good will.
In order to redress this imbalance NRM suspended political party activity and introduced the individual merit phenomenon – where people need not be sponsored by a party to run for any political office...
This decision had two major effects.
One, it made it possible for thousands of people who were
previously locked out of the existing party structures, to vie for office loosening
their allegiance to existing parties.
Secondly and related to the above, it allowed the NRM to
build up its political base with the new comers to politics and by coopting some
of the existing political operators. The strategy was so successful, so much so
that the NRM has been in power longer than all the previous governments before
it combined.
A return to multi-partyism in 2006 however failed to make
the break from this concept of individual merit causing much headache in the
political parties and even the NRM.
In a multi-party set up the party’s agenda overshadows
individual ambition. If one falls out of line, disciplinary measures by the
party can be brought to bear on the culprit, which may very well lead to an end
of a political career at worst or a stint in the political wilderness.
What this has done in more established democracies is to
restrict political contest to a handful of parties, with independent candidates
being an aberration.
Which brings us back nicely to Baryamureeba.
At the moment Baryamureeba’s candidature can best be seen as
an announcement of his arrival on the political scene rather a credible
challenge of President Yoweri Museveni’s three decade long tenure as the
country’s CEO. Baryamureeba could only do that in a system like Uganda’s where
independent candidature is common enough that it is not an anomaly.
Independent candidates are important in any political system
because they are not burdened by the baggage of incumbency or the reputation as
barefaced opportunists that opposition parties are often saddled with.
That being said the independents lack the networks that
established parties have, making their chances not unlike casting ones bread
upon the waters and hoping it comes back buttered.
In the last election Norbert Mao and Olara Otunu the flag
bearers for the Democratic Party (DP) and the Uganda People’s Congress (UPC)
between them failed to muster five percent of the vote in the presidential
elections. Their party’s showing in the parliamentary polls was just as dismal.
The Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), managed 26 percent of
the presidential vote and have the most seats in parliament of any opposition
party. The FDC have grown due to the charisma of their flag bearer Kiiza
Besigye in the last two elections and as seen as the home of the former NRM who
see it as comfortable landing ground between the NRM and the traditional
opposition parties.
"In the less than 12 months within which Baryamureeba has to muster a realistic challenge against Museveni, he needs to build a nationwide network and ratchet up his charisma quotient...
The latter is easier to do than the former, but heck! This
Uganda give it a shot prof.
No comments:
Post a Comment