SOMETHING IS GOING TO GIVE

A week or so ago, it was reported that parliament had earmarked a budget of sh165b or sh300m for each of the 520 MPs to buy a car.

Understandably there was a public uproar. In this time when we are trying to recover from the Covid-19 related down turn in the economy, when many are seeing lower incomes or loss of jobs altogether, when businesses are shutting down up and down the street,

this shameless show of public gorging at the trough was worse than a slap in the face of Ugandans....

History shows that among the main  reasons for economic collapse, is when countries starve or eliminate the productive sectors of resources in favour of consumers.

We saw it in the 1970s with the expulsion of the Asians by Idi Amin.  The Asians at the time dominated the commercial space – as they did all over East Africa. You might not like the Asians, business skills are passed on through mentorship not through presidential edict. It is the reason why some of our most respected businessmen have learnt their skills at the feet of Asian businessmen, and why too, Kenya’s indigenous business community is more robust than our own.

It happened more recently in Zimbabwe, where Robert Mugabe in a last desperate attempt to hang on to power dispossessed white businessmen of their land. The result was that Zimbabwe went from a net exporter of food to a recipient of food aid today.

In the 21st century less brutal means are being used but work nevertheless. 

When MPs get sh165b for cars to whizz around the country, sectors like tourism – our largest foreign exchange earner, have been allocated sh176b in the 2021/22 budget. Gold has overtaken coffee as our largest export earner, but only sh81b has been allocated to mineral development.  

The winner has to be that government has allocated sh102b to digital transformation. 

Last year if there were any doubts that this country needs to fast track the adoption of ICT technologies, the Covid lockdown removed all doubt. Businessmen were forced to adopt electronic payment systems and online delivery to stay afloat. We need more government investment in infrastrucure and training as well as forward looking policies that will ensure we keep up with modern trends. Consumers need faster internet speeds and those who don’t have, should not be left behind.

Maybe the sh100b earmarked for digital transformation is enough but it speaks to what our priorities are.

Parliament, which has grown to an ungainly 520 members while our revenues are expected to fall short of the projected sh21.8trillion by sh3trillion. It is common sense – or at least it should be, that when your incomes is falling you have to cut your expenses, but clearly not in Uganda.

It would be funny if it weren’t frightening...

People forget that the reason we had to suffer the Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) of the 1980s and 1990s, at the heart of it, was that we were not collecting enough revenue to meet our costs. So we were forced to cut back on our costs as a condition to borrow the money to jump start the productive sectors of the economy.

If we are not careful we may find ourselves back in the same place and not because of war and destruction...

As it is now one in every three shillings of the budget – sh15trillion is going to go towards debt repayments. This would not be a problem as long as the economy is growing and tax revenues are following suit, but that is not the case.

And since we don’t want to tighten our belts we have to borrow more to cover the deficit, and who approves government loan requests? Parliament. What a racket!

To be fair there are other questionable expenditures up and down the budget – did you hear about the sh481b the Bank of Uganda did not want?

So God forbid one day we will wake up a we can not service our debt and the foreign lenders will  return us to SAPs. Hopefully one of the fist things they will insist on, is to take an axe to parliament’s ballooning budget. And of course parliament will mobilise us lemmings to protest against the “imperialist” agents, yet they are the ones through their own profligacy, that will have sunk us into the hole. Unfortunately health, education and infrastructure budgets will be cut slowing down our development ambitions.

Some may argue that the sh165b is to cater for cars over the next five years, but it is still a one off hit on next year’s budget.

Ok given that the MPs need transportation to carry out their “important” duties in their constituencies, but there are much more cost efficient ways to do this.

For instance government can lend the MPs the money to buy their cars. Even if they gave them interest free loans that would be much cheaper than what is currently happening. One advantage of this is the MPs would be forced to cut their coat to fit the cloth and we might have a more  rational distribution of cars, not all fuel guzzlers as it is likely to be now.

But even cheaper for government is if it got a fleet management company that would own  and maintain the cars. Also in addition they would rationalise the fleet, there is no reason why the Kampala Central MP should have a car of the same capacity as the MP from Arua, Kabong or Kisoro.  This will have real cost saving implications not only in the cost of the cars but also the cost of running them. 

And those are a but a few options we should, no, must adopt, in order to come out of the current economic crisis standing.

Unfortunately this is not going to happen.

Our public servants and officials see the treasury only as means for accumulation and self aggrandisement and to hell with the rest of us....

Imagine where this country would be if those same MPs set their minds to building enterprises that can sustain them in the lifestyles – sh20m a month salary, they have now become accustomed?

RESOLUTION 2021: CHANGE YOUR MIND

The other day someone tapped me for financial advice. Whenever I hear such a request I am torn between rolling my eyes and running for the hills.

As it often turns out they want a quick fix solution, “By this time next week/month/year I don’t want to be poor like this. Banange!” Immediately you know that whatever you say will not be unlike throwing pearls to the swine.

But I am always thinking how can I give a distilled message that will lead to a deeper discussion about their finances or at the bare minimum send them off nodding knowingly, never to return.

I think I have I worked it out.

To begin with it starts in the mind.

"Thoughts lead to action, which lead to habit, which lead to the desired wealth or undesired poverty...

. It is impossible to improve your financial situation without exercising your brain, and you don’t have to be a rocket scientist.

Sounds so mundane and cliché but you will be shocked how few appreciate this.

But that is not my “silver bullet” for financial literacy.

Here it is. 

There are only two ways to spend money, you either consume it or you invest it. You are broke or rich because of the balance between consumption and investment in your financial habits.

For me I think if that is the first principle – at least until I think about something else.

Consumption is easy to understand, spending without promise of future return (there maybe immediate gratification but that is all and doesn’t last) and investment is the opposite – spending with a hope of future return.

The poorest among us consume all they earn. The lowest earners spend it all on the basic necessities – food, shelter, clothing. The highest earners spend it on keeping up with the Jones – high living and ostentatious consumption. At the end of the day they are all poor. 

The latter group – the high spenders, do not realise that its not how much you spend but how much you keep that makes you rich. With their actions they have decided that they would rather look rich than be rich.

The wealthiest among us have their spending patterns shifted towards investment and away from consumption. The lowest earners in this group invest more than they spend on themselves. 

They told me a story of the Asian accountant who only came to work with two bananas. He had them for lunch with water from the office fridge. He did this for close to near three decades of his career, with some variations of course.

At the end of his career he had not only put his children through school, paying for their university education in the finest institutions in the world but could retire to a life of leisure.

The challenge for

many people when they hear this story is they want to “eat’ (consumption) life now because tomorrow may not come. Then they live to the ripe old age of 85...

On the other side of the pendulum the wealthiest spend a fraction of a fraction of their income. Because their investments throw off so much income they can live, what seems,  a life of luxury.

So for instance the wealthy man who gets a million dollars monthly from his real estate investments but barely spends $65,000 on himself and family a month. The surplus $935,000 is ploughed back into the businesses or packed in other investments that throw off more cashflow.

These alternative views of money apply whatever your station in life.

So if you want to understand why you are not climbing out of the rat race look at the balance of consumption to investment in your spending decisions...

Using this as the bedrock of your financial literature you can graduate to, what are the available investments, how can they be appraised and how you can finance their acquisition.

The turn off for most is that this discipline – of  shifting the balance of your spending towards investment and away from consumption, has to be maintained for years. And in fact the day you cross over to financial freedom and wealth will not happen to you like a revelation on the road to Damascus.

Another reason why this method is a turn off, is because it can entail doing such mundane things as saving, investing in such things as one roomed apartments (mzigos) and not multi-storied apartments, growing mushrooms in your garage and not going to the farm every weekend.

We are forever seduced by the promise of quick money and an even faster life...

these slow processes don’t work for us.

In 2021 let it be a resolution to change our minds and shift our spending more towards investment and away from consumption.

This goes to the parliament of Uganda too.

Happy New Year.

ALL EYES ON UGANDA'S RULING NRM

 There are interesting times ahead for the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM).

As the dust settles over the recent presidential and parliamentary elections and to some extent the district elections, the spoils of war have to be distributed.

Unfortunately the NRM is far from jubilant at their recent showing at the polls, and therefore some hard decisions will have to be taken.

Central Uganda was an absolute blood bath for the NRM, with the National Unity Platform (NUP) sweeping everything but a handful of seats before them, 25 in all and accounting for 13 ministers in the process.

"In 2016 in trying to account to the NRM chairmen for their dismal performance, Kampala politicians blamed Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) boss Jennifer Musisi and her drive to bring order to the capital. This time around fingers are being pointed at Mengo and the Catholic Church – something about coffee beans. They are fast running out of scape goats...

The NRM took a beating in Busoga while gaining ground in northern Uganda, west Nile and the western regions. The Forum For Democratic Change (FDC) which could be counted on to win some seats around the country struggled to make an impression.

As is becoming the pattern, about two thirds of incumbent MPs were shown the  exit and with the additional 100-or-so seats means the house will have a new look and texture. Though the NRM will maintain its dominance with more than 300 seats to itself, without counting the NRM leaning independents.

At the end of last week Deputy Speaker Jacob Oulanyah took exception to comments by his boss Speaker Rebecca Kadaga that she was looking to retain her position as head of the house. 

The speaker of the house is decided by the party with the most seats in the house.

Oulanyah said Kadaga was reneging on a deal – ostensibly brokered by President Yoweri Museveni, that had been made the last time around that would see her step down and Oulanyah ascend to the speakership in 2021. This was all dependent on whether both would retain their seats, which they both did.

According to the constitution the speaker is only behind the vice president in the line of succession to the presidency. Beyond that, it is a very influential position given its leadership of parliament.

What could Museveni give Kadaga or Oulanyah in order to keep the peace not only in the house but maybe also in the party?

But Kadaga’s bargaining position is a bit shaky given the president’s losses in Busoga and especially in Kamuli district, where she is the long standing woman representative.

Going for her is that she is a woman – a constituency not to thumb ones nose at and she can point to the fact that she was mostly onside over the last five years.

Whichever way it goes, with Oulanyah throwing down the gauntlet last week, this is not going to go away quietly.

"As happened last time when the opposition threatened to throw in their lot behind Kadaga, expect them again to be rubbing their palms in glee at the thought of spreading dissension in the NRM ranks....

For Kadaga no other office, other than the presidency, offers her as much influence over the politics of Uganda. So anything else she may be offered may seem like a demotion – even the vice presidency.

For Oulanyah taking over the office of the speaker, will mark a return from near political oblivion, after his ill advised support of the Aggrey Awori run for the presidency in 2001.

The former Uganda People’s Congress (UPC) young turk had to reinvent himself by joining the ruling party, win a seat in then NRM-hostile northern region and as a reward became deputy speaker.

The stakes are high and the strategists at Kyadondo road have some head scratching to do to diffuse the situation.

Will the loss of his Bukoto County Central seat mean Vice President Edward Sekandi will be passed over this time, his seat being dangled before either speaker as a peace offering to make this dilemma go away? 

Let us wait and see.

THE COST OF SHUTTING DOWN THE INTERNET

My friend was hoping she had left the trials and tribulations of 2020 behind her and that 2021 would allow her business to get back on its feet again.

Last year Agnes was forced to shut down her downtown shop, where she dealt in shoes and clothes. The lockdown and the subsequent collapse in economic activity meant, she couldn’t keep with rent payments. She substituted a physical location for an online presence in August and by the end of the year her revenues were not quite up to where they were at the same time the previous year, but because of the saving on rent, she was not complaining.

New stock had just come in at the beginning of last week and she was taking orders when government shut down social media – she deals off facebook and instagram  and then the internet altogether. And to add salt to injury mobile money transfers too were suspended.

While the internet is back on and social media still – officially off, she believe she has lost momentum and could the government please restore normal service asap.

The government shut down the internet for fear of anticipated riots in the wake of the just concluded elections.

In a liberalised economy government has three main roles --  to maintain macroeconomic stability, regulate and direct markets through an overarching strategy for the economy.

"When the liberalised economy fails to deliver to the general population it is an indictment on the government of the day....

The market, while being the most effective creator of wealth we know, is the probably the worst distributor of that  same wealth. The market tends to give more to those who have and to those with little, even the little they have it takes away from them.

The distribution of wealth is therefore a government role. By providing services like security, health and education, governments ensure that a conducive environment for wealth creation is in place and that by improving the productivity of the people they can not only create more wealth, but also take advantage of the opportunities thrown up by the benign environment.

But more importantly through formulating strategy, which determines the national vision and therefore to which sectors resources will be directed, the government signals to the market what its priorities are. Regulation also ensures that among other things anti-competitive behaviour does not take root.

Some people with ulterior motives, other than making the economy more efficient in driving development, think that government should be in business to blunt the worst excesses of the market.

The problem and this shows up in inefficient state enterprises, which distort markets and drain the public coffers, is that government’s the world over key agenda is to stay in power. They do this through distributing patronage. Governments can not help themselves, faced with a choice between staying in power and profitable companies, they will choose the fòrmer over the latter...

That is how you find questionable investments – like the ice cooling plant on the shores of Lake Victoria not connected to the electricity grid or the banana project that has swallowed billions of shillings over the last decade and has not gone commercial or the fruit factory in eastern Uganda which is limping despite the vast bounty of fruit in the region …. And don’t get me started about Uganda Airlines.

To repeat myself, the main role of government is to create an enabling environment for business to thrive, without abrogating its responsibility to ensure that the economy works for its citizens not for a small urban elite or foreign interests.

Which brings us around to the closure of the internet last week. 

While we can not discount the threats to national security that government claimed, a national strategy would have helped the decision makers factor in the loss to the economy and judge the opportunity cost of taking one action or another. 

Other countries including the US have had elections in the last six months. They too had serious national security issues surrounding safeguarding their electoral processes. But because e-commerce is a multi-trillion business shutting down the internet was not an option. Instead the US has invested massive resources in online security as well as built collaborative  relationships with industry.

The US knows and appreciates that the internet is a major infrastructure, which while it does not own it, has found and continues to find ways to ensure it works for the American people and business.

It is not impossible. 

It is very possible that there are external threats to national security and they show themselves in one way or another everyday. But government has found a way to monitor and deter these – I hope, without shutting down our roads at every rumour or sign of danger.

A similar soft touch is required for 21st century technologies.

Thanks to the lock down last year the move towards e-commerce by our businesses has accelerated. That might have been the one silver lining that came out of the covid-19 pandemic.

"Just like our economy will be helped by better quality roads, railways and marine transport we need our internet to be fast, reliable and uninterrupted. Our competitiveness as a nation will rely on that more and more....

The Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) task force is completing its report, with a proposed strategy for the nation on how we can adopt and take advantage of the new technologies that are coming into common use. Maybe a clause about how to manage these around elections may be important.

AFTER THE ELECTIONS, WHAT?

Last week we went to the polls to vote in the much anticipated presidential and parliamentary elections.

President Yoweri Museveni won another term in office and his ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) party maintained its dominance in parliament capturing about 62 percent of the seats in the house.

Neophytes the National Unity Platform (NUP) crashed the party to win the most seats of any opposition party, 61, with most of its victories at the expense of the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) and Democratic Party (DP).

There are many lessons from the just concluded polls for both sides of the divide.

For the NRM the blood bath in Central region, with not a single minister from the region returning to the house, has to be a wake up call. While the NRM can shrug these losses off because of their dominance in parliament, the strategists at Kyadondo road must be wondering whether this can be replicated in other regions in the future or not.

"We have always known there is discontent with the NRM’s coming to four decade long stay in power – otherwise NRM would be showing 90 percent landslides, what is clear now is that the much touted demographic shift has happened...

Eighty percent of the population are below the age of 35, and therefore can not relate to the dark days of Uganda’s recent past. Whatever progress has been made is the baseline against which they measure progress, and for them progress is not happening fast enough.

To beat off (forgive the pun!) the opposition,  government has to keep the economy growing but more than that, they need to distribute this growth more equitably through continual improvement of the business environment, while improving education and health services, so that Ugandans can take advantage of the improved business environment.

The NRM has done it before – reinvent itself after every election, there is no reason to believe they can not any more, especially when many of its ministers, 25, were shown the door in the election.

"The overwhelming victory in central Uganda while not to be  snorted at, may very well be a poisoned chalice for NUP....

The barely six month party will now be held to a higher standard than before. The suggestion that they can be real challengers to the throne, mean the public will be looking beyond the romanticism of their red berets to expect much more deliberate and constructive opposition to government. Failure to do this may see them dismissed as a circus that the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) in South Africa now are.

Also the pressure on them is going to be whether they can build into a party with a more national character. As it is now they are susceptible to being portrayed and isolated as a parochial party.

And finally how NUP engages with other opposition parties in the house will be key to the above. NUP may decide to keep all the juicy positions in the committees and parliamentary commission for themselves, alienating the other parties, especially their older dogs who have become accustomed to being the chairs of the key committees in  the house.

To be magnanimous and spread out the goodies among the opposition is going to be a tall order. The NUP rank and file will argue they have suffered disproportionately to get to the house and deserve everything they can get their hands on.

"It will be interesting to see whether NUP leader Robert Kyagulanyi has the political sleight of hand to juggle these competing interests to not only bring the opposition together, at least in the house but more  importantly to sustain his party’s momentum for the next five years....

In coming years all eyes will be on NUP if only because of their novelty. But it will also be interesting to see how the old in the tooth NRM responds to this new dynamic.

An old Chinese saying springs to mind, “May you live in interesting times.”

LESSONS FROM 2020, A YEAR TO FORGET

Last year was supposed to be the year that everything fell in place and we would take off to greater heights.

It is the year, we found out about a place called Wuhan in China, we forwent shaking hands and hugging without being branded anti-social, sneezing was taboo and we almost went bat crazy being in isolation.

They say,

"If you want to make God laugh tell him your plans...

In the best tradition of turning lemons into lemonades, here are some lessons learnt from a year we would all love to forget.

1. You never know when the rainy day is coming

It is a fact of life that things will be going well until they don’t. And like a thief in the night the bad times never announce themselves. Who would have though that a flu-like disease would shut down the world – literally?

So if there is one thing that 2020 showed us is the importance of saving. We don’t save for lack of cash or lack of willingness but because we don’t know how to save. When we get our paycheck, we intention to save something after we have catered for all our expenses and inevitably we don’t save. The trick is when you get your paycheck save some predetermined amount first and spend what is left. 

This simple, but not easy, shift in perspective will make a world of difference in beefing up your savings, and therefore readying us for the inevitable rainy day.

2. Multiple streams of income became real

With paychecks being cut or lost altogether, the old say about keeping all eggs in one basket took on a new importance.

Beyond your major income do you have other income streams you can count on, on a regular basis? Are they diverse enough that if some dry up others will be there to take up the slack?

And how do you build up these income streams? You can earn income from your selling your expertise – consulting or from a hobby you pursue in your free time. The trick is to provide value and make known what you do – marketing. Once you build a reputation guard it with your life.

With your savings you can start investing to build these income streams. Do it like the banks, build your asset base from near cash assets –  savings and fixed deposits, to treasury bills and bonds to shares in companies and eventually to more fixed assets like real estate. 

"The mistake many of us make is to jump straight into fixed assets, which while a good store of value, return very little cash-on-cash and can often leave us asset rich and cash poor...

Systematically building this pile of cash generating assets, may make the difference between returning to your parents house at the next crisis or weathering the storm with a smile or at least a grin.

3. The personal brand takes work

In our office space, working in a functioning organisation, doing what we do best, can be deceptive. No one but your immediate colleagues and boss know or appreciate your value. That is all very well as long as you are in the job you are in. As soon as you lose that job you realise you are not so hot as you thought. Not that your expertise or experience disappears in a puff of smoke, but because not enough people in the wider world appreciate your value.

Just because you have all the letters of the alphabet after your name doesn’t mean you deliver value.

So personal branding became important in 2020. The market will pay you according to the perceived value you can deliver. The market can not divine your value. You need to communicate your value deliberately, systematically and consistently for it to be fully appreciated.

This takes work, work we should be doing every day and especially in the good times when hakuna matata.

4. Social capital was key

When things are going well – the money is flowing in, we are covering our bills, with some left over to have a good time we forget the value of social support systems. The people around us – at home, at the office, our alumni became useful in getting us through the darkest, loneliest periods. The extent to which they were useful depended on how we had watered these relationships in the good times.  

Ironically despite the world being more connected we are actually more detached from our social networks. 

We need to invest in these more ahead of the next crisis. In the words of Dale Carnegie, “be interested to be interesting”. Speak to our people, find out what makes them tick, be available, help when you can, accept help where you can (a friend in need is a friend indeed) and generally be more friendly, even if to two other people in your life.

5. Invest in your inner resources

But when all was said and done, regardless of if you had a village supporting you or you were alone, it was really up to you to struggle through the year.

There is a case for building your inner resources – mental and spiritual during the good times so that your inner peace is not easily disrupted when the hard times come along.

Mentally you need to keep learning and that means you have t o maintain an open mind that is easily teachable. Hanging on to fixed positions for security, means that when the upheavals come we will not have the  mental flexibility to adjust.

A continued quest of self discovery will eventually bring one to the universal truths that religions have tried to codify down the ages. Finding ones own truth – not the turnkey solutions parroted by charlatans, is a continous and arduous journey. The end benefit is that the journey grounds you, more than any religious dogma does and when the hard times come along you will have an anchor. 

Otherwise Happy New Year to you all and may 2021 be more easy on you – on us all,  than 2020.

WHO WILL VOTE FOR BOBI WINE?

With about two weeks to go we are fast approaching the business end of the 2021 presidential elections.

The recent poll commissioned by the New Vision to determine the way the presidential elctions will go, threw up no real surprises.

One, that President Yoweri Museveni is leading in the polls. This election is really his to lose. With the end-to-end network that the National Resistance Movement (NRM),  a reversal of their fortunes is improbable, if only because they have the biggest organisation.

Secondly, that Ugandans don’t want confusion and that this too – like the last five contests, is going to be a two horse race. That Robert Kyagulanyi aka Bobi Wine has taken over the dissenting vote from Kizza Besigye, has been clear for a while now, with all the usual suspects trailing miserably in his wake.

Will the balance change in coming weeks?  Will Museveni’s numbers slip below the crucial 50%+1 mark by mid-January?

Prophesising the winner of this election is out of the scope of this column, more interesting though is to divine how people will vote and which segments of the electorate will be the game changers, or not.

"Broadly there are two types of voters, those who will vote for Museveni and those who will not.

But if you drill down further, these are subdivided further into five groups....

The NRM voters are divided into three groups. 

The first group – The diehards, are those who will vote Museveni whatever the ills of his government and his own personal shortcomings. These are often people whose fortunes or very survival is directly tied to the continued stay in power of the NRM.

The second group – the pragmatists, is of those, who while they turn up their noses at the excess of the NRM, would vote for Museveni anyway. Their logic is a pragmatic one, they are in business or at the peak or approaching the peak of their careers, they don’t want anything or anyone to rock the boat. They calculate that a continuation of the Museveni administration, will not hurt them much but in fact lead to their continued prosperity. Also they don’t think the alternative candidate offer much promise for their prospects.

The third group of people  -- the apolitical, who will vote the NRM are those who will stay away all together from the process. Abstaining from voting is often times a vote for the incumbent. The fact that you don’t vote for the ruling party means you are against them, a vote which would do some good for the opposition. That is why it is always key for the opposition to turn out the vote, as Barrack Obama showed in 2008 and Joe Biden in 2020 in the US elections.

That leaves two groups who will vote for the opposition. 

The first group, I-would-vote-for-a-jerrycan-rather-than-Museveni, is convinced that the NRM is irredeemable and would vote for anyone who puts himself up for election against Museveni. The core of the group are people who have been shut out of power by the NRM’s continued existence and want them toppled by whatever means necessary. A fear of instability is a greater risk to take than the continuation of a Museveni administration.

The second group don’t think an NRM loss is a possibility, but want to, on one hand create a protest vote that will hopefully make NRM look up and take notice. Also within this group are those who want to create a momentum that will hopefully build up to the point that they can see the back of Museveni and his NRM in the near future.

Interestingly these could have easily fallen into the second group of NRM voters – the pragmatists, but they are more moralistic and can not countenance voting for the NRM, which they see as corrupt and worse, evil. They don’t believe that the end justifies the means. Grudgingly they will admit that the status quo is not bad for them.

While the opposition has hyped up the nearly five million new voters who have come onto the role – they have turned 18 since 2016, it would be wrong to think the youth vote is an omnibus one. While youth opinion is less coloured by a wish to maintain the status quo, because they have accumulated little property, for instance and, which as a result tends to shift them towards rebellion against their elders and the status quo, there still those who recognise that their parents’ fortunes could be undermined by change, that their career path is best served by the status quo or that they cant be bothered to vote anyway.

So the voters who will make a real change in this election are the NRM pragmatists and the apolitical/abstainers....

The pragmatists will have to be convinced by the opposition that their boat will not be rocked by a change of government.

The apolitical/abstainers’ disgust with the NRM will have to be raised sufficiently enough that they can be convinced to get out of bed and vote against the NRM. Or be convinced that an opposition win will threaten life as they know it, which they think can be better but they would rather settle for the current situation than chaos, that they turn up to vote for the NRM.

The recent polls cement the perspective that this is not a popularity contest. People’s decisions will be governed by self interest – “what can you do for me”, more than whether I like this candidate or the next. At the risk of sounding obvious the balance of self interest between the pro-NRM, anti-NRM and the abstainers, will determine who wins the next presidential election. It always does.