FDC AND WHY POLITICS IS NOT A TEA PARTY

In the 1985 Wimbledon tennis championships opponents of German teen sensation Boris Becker complained that at the changeovers he tended to bump into them and generally not give way. When the complaint was raised with his manager the bearish Ion Tiriac his reply was “This is not a tea party”

In the last two weeks differences within the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) that have been festering under the surface for years came into public view. The boil burst this week spewing out its fetid contents for all to see...

Like in the body, this should be a good thing, as the toxic contents of the boil may have gone on to infect other parts of the body if it had not oozed out.

For us on the sidelines of the action, it looks like an internal dispute that erupted but had to be aired out for progress to be made for better or for worse.  But we do not put it past the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) to have lanced the boil open.

Beyond this being a natural progression of development anyone who has been watching the FDC from its inception and even before when it was the pressure group Reform Agenda should not be surprised.

There are many reasons things are unfolding the way they are but two jump to mind.

Like with most political organisations FDC was founded on the personality of the Dr Kizza Besigye. Following his run for the presidency in 2001 the consensus was that he was still the one who could go toe to toe with President Yoweri Museveni in the polls. This was in 2005 just before the 2006 elections, which saw the return of multi-party elections to Uganda.

"When Besigye stepped down as party president in 2011, it was always going to be an uphill task to find a leader of similar global appeal. In addition, Besigye never went away. He hovered around Najjanankumbi like a bad smell, making it impossible for his successor Major General Mugisha Muntu to stamp his authority on the leading opposition party. Mugisha Muntu’s successor has fared no better, ceding the leadership of the opposition to Robert Kyagulanyi in the process.

Besigye has argued of course that there is no time/term limit in the struggle to remove Museveni, which makes sense, but one can see how his shadow remains a problem in FDC.

Given that he has been there from the start it would be unrealistic to expect Besigye be an indifferent observer to the goings on.

The second issue which is related to the first is the long-term dominance of the political scene by the NRM in general but Museveni in particular.

Just as at Wimbledon politics is not a tea party. Any ruling party worth its salt will be monitoring the opposition and looking to counter any maneuvers they maybe making. Spreading dissension in the enemy ranks is legitimate political tactics, never mind what the moralists say. Both factions in FDC accuse the other of receiving financial aid from the NRM. I believe them, both.

Beyond that the example of Museveni at the helm of the NRM for decades is causing much discomfort in the opposition. The opposition feel some moral pressure to show they are different from the NRM, to have term limits for their leaders,  which is good for the optics but does not allow anyone to gather momentum and pose a potent threat to Museveni. No sooner has leader gained traction than he has to step aside for “good governance”.

The challenge with this therefore is that every so often there is jostling for position in opposition parties, each contest factionalising and disenfranchising members, weakening them meaning they find it hard to present a united front to the public. FDC suffered this in 2016 and again in 2021.

It is no tea party in the opposition, especially with Museveni pulling the strings across the road. It means there will be no smash and grab rush for the leadership in Uganda. That the road to statehouse – whatever the politicians tell their minions will always be a marathon and not a sprint.

Given the internal tension in opposition parties time is not something they have in any meaningful supply. Their fragility is exposed with the passing of time, more so than with the NRM.

Ideally all political actors should be working towards creating a robust and an enduring democracy. But politics is about the attaining and retaining of power, which often plays counter to the development of democracy. This is the brutal honest truth about politics.

But it is also why democracy is not an event but an evolution. Believe it or not the natural progression is towards individual freedom which is democracy. The nature of each country’s democracy is determined by how they resolve the contestation between the ruling party and the opposition.

The fracas in FDC is excruciatingly painful for those involved but seen against the greater schemes of things and inevitable occurrence in the progress towards democracy.