THE BENEFITS OF EASING EAC TRAVEL ARE COUNTLESS

On Wednesday Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and his Rwandan counterpart Paul Kagame used their national identity cards as travel documents to cross into enter Uganda.

Never mind that they did so at Entebbe airport – it would have been a more powerful statement if they did it at their respective borders with Uganda, but the symbolism of this gesture could not be lost on anyone.

The plan is that starting in January, citizens of the three countries will be able to use national IDs, voters’ cards and student cards to travel across their borders.

Accompanying this are initiatives are moves to make working in either of the countries easy for its citizens.

Of course the truth of the matter is that our border communities have been making border crossing without the use of a passport for ages. Not only that have gone to school, worked, started businesses and enjoyed the social services from across the border. They will be understandably surprised at what the big deal is about.

This is a classic example of how the political class is often way behind the people they claim to represent.

 Fourteen years after the reestablishment of the East African Community with the signing by the presidents of Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda it has progressed to a customs union is speeding along to becoming a monetary union with the final destination being a political federation.

All these plans are all very well on paper but they mean nothing without the free movement of people and capital across the region.

We take it for granted but movement of people and the increasing ease with which they do it has a dramatic impact on the economy. It is not just a cliché but time is money.

I have been told stories of how during the previous East African Community one could deposit money on their post office account in Mombasa, take the train and withdraw your money all the way across the region in Kasese using just your post office pass book. That may sound rather dated in this era of the ATM card but it was a big deal then and had implications for the economy at the time.

Just think the losses traders and individuals would make if they were to stop at every district border on a Kampala-Mbarara trip? A three hour journey would be stretched out into an overnight journey and the added costs that come with food and board. As it is now you can ferry fish from Masaka to Kampala on the back of pickups a feat which would not be possible with numerous delays along the way. The traders would have to invest in cooling vans which would raise the cost of production and the eventual cost of the fish on our menus.

The Schengen area in Europe is a step higher than what we are attempting in East Africa. The 22-member states that constitute this borderless region, have done away with border protocols among themselves. Research into the benefits of this have found that trade grows 0.1% a year between neighbouring states.

One can expect the proportion in growth in East Africa will be higher, if only because we are starting from a lower base of inter-country trade.

The researchers into the economic benefits to the Schengen found that the benefits came from the immigrants being ready markets for goods from their home countries, immigrants also reduced the risk in signing contracts or sourcing produce from their home countries.

Fast tracking the free movement not only of people but of labour across, the region will have incalculable benefits to the economies of the region and will make future efforts at monetary union and political federation more realistic.

MUSEVENI IS NRM’S WINNNG TICKET – SURPRISE! SURPRISE!

“A week is a long time in politics,” former UK Prime Minister Harold Wilson once said. This could not have been truer for last week.

At the beginning of the week, we were discussing such “mundane” subjects as MP Nandala Mafabi’s fall from grace.

The 11-day retreat by the NRM in Kyankawanzi,while significant was not expected to throw up much different from the usual chest thumping.

But what started out as a morning walk on Saturday led by President Yoweri Museveni, ended up as a lunch where a section of NRM MPS mooted the unopposed candidature of Museveni as party flag bearer in the 2016 presidential elections. Reports are MPs literally had to stand up to be counted on the proposal.

While we were still debating whether this was reflective of the party mood, no one underestimated the significance of what had happened at Kyankwanzi, never mind it was around a lunch of roast meat.

If we had doubts, a resolution was passed on Tuesday, signatures and all that proposed Museveni as the flag bearer, urged him to offer himself as a candidate and discourage some senior leaders from trying to present themselves as possible flag bearers in the next election.

The last resolution should have raised eyebrows but probably didn’t.

There are still more formalities to go through before this resolution can be formally adopted by the party and executed but clearly the battle lines have been drawn.

For outsiders looking in on the party, there are a few interesting things to note from this recent development.

That there was a near consensus that the resolution carries the day. Even if there is suspicion that some party members may be getting restless, clamouring for ventilation of the party that they publicly put pen to paper in support of unopposed Museveni candidature speaks volumes.

The naysayers were quick to suggest that while the MPs have shown support most of them in their hearts do not believe in the project. In politics when perception comes up against fact, perception often wins. A perception has been created that our very own representatives to parliament have given the project a greenlight it will be an uphill struggle to reverse that perception.

Secondly, the opposition who understandably are not keen on another Museveni run were caught flat footed and only managed the usual emotional tirades. They don’t savour another run against the president, because they have a dismal record against him to begin with and secondly, related to the first for the opposition to have any chance they will have to field a single candidate.

"The dynamics of cobbling together such an alliance as the past has shown, leave the respective opposition leaders weaker coming out of the polls than when they went in...

And finally while we have all taken it for granted that Museveni will be the party’s flag bearer for the fifth successive presidential election, the president had made no comment on the matter as at the time of writing.

We might tear at our hair, gnash our teeth and cover our heads in ash at the turn of events but this is politics, away from the sanitised version you learnt in school.

Political parties are about winning and retaining power as means of advancing their own agenda. 

Politicians and political parties by extension are not going to work themselves out of power if they can help it. In the resolution the NRM did not mince words about this.

The Democrats in the US or the Conservatives in the UK or Christian Democratic Union in Germany may couch their message in more flowery language but the bottom line is getting and retaining power.

Also it should be remembered that whereas Museveni may have his own political ambitions, each of the MPs is weighing his own chances in the next election and how a Museveni candidacy would affect it. Forget ideology this as much about self-preservation as prolonging the administration....

It has not been lost on some that if the president accepts a party nomination it will be his last term, given the 75 year constitutional age limits for candidates intending to run for president.

That would disqualify Museveni in in 2021 – barring a constitutional amendment, but would open the door to other potential contenders in the party.

Professor Gilbert Bukenya is the only one who has openly declared he will seek to be the party’s flag bearer in the coming election. With this Kyankwanzi declaration the other rivals’ hands have been forced, they will have to declare their intentions one way or another before the momentum for an unopposed Museveni nomination gathers momentum and shuts them out of the running.

May you live in interesting times, is a Chinese curse. We would all be well advised to brace for interesting times ahead.

THE CAMPAIGNS ARE HERE

There has been a flurry of political activity in the last two weeks that leave no doubt that battle lines are being drawn ahead of the 2016 polls.

First off Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) Major General Mugisha Muntu took greater control of the party by ditching MP Nandala Mafabi as leader of the opposition in parliament. He later on shuffled parliamentary committee leaders.

Then the NRM caucus went on what was expected to be a routine retreat to Kyankwanzi and threw the cat among the pigeons by a unanimous resolution to have President Yoweri Museveni unopposed as party flag bearer.

There is still a lot of paper work to be gone through before Museveni is formally adopted by the party but a perception has been created and one other challengers will struggle to erode.

"Outside the party despite its internal issue, an NRM united in purpose so early in the game – it’s about 24 months before the elections, could be a nightmare to go up against....

With the presidential flag bearer decided for all practical purposes it will be interesting to see whether the party can resolve the MP nominations with such decisiveness, though one can expect the squabbling prior to the last election will replay itself this time around.

It is still early days but two major themes are likely to play out in the run up to 2016.

For the opposition and FDC in particular, can they build a national structure to deploy? As it is now the older parties the Democratic Party (DP), Uganda People’s Congress (UPC) are hobbled by leadership challenges and an inertia that has seen them falling out of public view since 2011. For FDC the recent moves suggest Muntu is creating a party in his image – quiet but calculating, unassuming but unafraid to take on the establishment. The days of bluster and grandstanding may be over, at least for the time being...

The issue of forming an opposition will come up and one can expect frenetic efforts in the coming months to cobble together a semblance of a coalition. However without a national network to counter the NRM’s we can expect the same results from previous elections.

In the NRM its longevity could be its greatest advantage and greatest liability. An asset because they can call on a time tested network, the 2016 poll will be its fifth election. The LC system maybe broken down but there are thousands of NRM “faithful” willing to throw in their lot with the yellow party, for a fee of course.

The challenge of the Movement and why acrimonious primaries for parliamentary are inevitable is that ever younger aspirants are coming through to challenge incumbents many of whom have held their seats for more than a decade. Everybody likes a winner and in many instances winning the NRM primaries is a sure deal for winning the parliamentary seat for the constituency.

"For the Movement too this will be a particularly vicious primary election because with Museveni winding down the clock – the constitution puts the ceiling on presidential candidates at 75, one has to be at the center of things to be considered when the transition is being massaged....

And finally one can expect the “senior leaders within presidential ambitions” – to quote the Kyankwanzi resolution, to slink off to lick their wounds but to regroup and try and make a last ditch attempt to be the parties torch bearer over the next two years.

If there was any doubt that the campaigns were on the events of the last week dispel any such illusions.