Yes Amama may win it – but can he sit the 'Iron Throne'?

In battle, when crevices emerge within an enemy’s camp – you do not, in pursuing your own victory, seek to resolve them.

It wouldn’t even be in the least of your interests to point them out – as awareness on the enemy’s part might engender a radical process of self-medication; and in the case that the crevice is healed, make him all the more formidable an opponent for you.

Indeed – a wise commander and wise soldiers do not look upon the crevice as a ‘problem’ for their foe – but rather, as opportunity for them.

This, I submit, is the case with the recent sensational fall-outs of two very high-ranking officials within Uganda’s incumbent political party, the National Resistance Movement, and the mixed reactions these two individuals – a former Prime Minister and a former Head of Internal Security, received from the nation’s largely politically ambivalent population, and mostly fledgling political opposition. 

These two figures have both (until the schism) been close to the party leader and Head of State, and notoriously instrumental in Museveni’s decades’ long hold onto the Ugandan Presidency.

But, referring to our introductory analogy, what kind of opportunity is created here.

On the one hand, there are those in the two ‘recipient’ classes mentioned who might believe that with significantly fewer voting numbers (fighting men) on their side, the present fall-out doesn’t reflect a meaningful battle-field advantage.

That, though pruned of a few notable branches, the NRM shoot is still tough enough to withstand the mild gusts of wind the opposition may blow against it in the next election cycle. 

This – they claim, is evidenced by the fact that the two defecting individuals, while they had structural political clout within the party, were not sufficiently popular at a mass level to effect large scale exoduses of party members along with them.

This sounds a rational argument – and it certainly hold water, but it is defeatist, and I don’t believe it lifts either the moral spirits in the ranks of those movements allied for political transition in the country, or the political opposition’s chances of making a good bargain out of the ruling party’s current crisis.

I would like to be trusting, and believe that the ultimate objective of all actors in Uganda’s political opposition, implicitly or overtly, is to have Museveni lose legitimacy as the nation’s head, and to do so with a minimum of damage to Ugandan life and property.

Short of a bloodless revolution, which is a near impossibility in our class-divided and ethnically-charged society – I believe a win at the polls would be the only way to accomplish said feat.

Now, clearly – the opposition’s recent attempts at electoral contestation have made it crystal clear in the minds of Ugandans that they are essentially cut out of the same political coat as the ruling government.

Much of the top-brass of opposition organizations here are not new kids on the block, political nobodies who shot to prominence through passionate resistance to a bad contemporary politics. No – many of them are indeed former associates of Museveni ; ex-ministers, counselors and advisers who for one reason or other  fell out along the way.

This essentially means that they think like the incumbent; a fact that has been demonstrated in the similar political styles of both sides over the four election cycles since 1996. For instance, with much else of the country fairly tipped towards Museveni, Ssemwogerere in 1996 appealed to the popular sentiment of Buganda sub-nationalism which apparently Museveni had earlier promised but was yet to deliver on. 

Kizza Besigye and Nobert Mao have played this card as well, which has seen Museveni, not to be bested, granting more concessions on ‘ebyaffe’ to Buganda as recently as earlier this year.

Political campaigns on both sides are littered with mass voter bribery, mud-slinging, trading of insults and very vague references to national development objectives and aspirations. 

So much has the opposition mirrored the incumbent’s strategies that it became comical when in 2011, Museveni alleged that the FDC had attempted to staff ballot boxes, and effectively rig the polls.

With perhaps the exception of Betty Kamya’s Federal Alliance Party, opposition economic and structural policies are almost indistinguishable from the lip-service of the incumbents.

In the eyes of Ugandans therefore, the opposition has failed to offer an alternative polity, and confined itself to knee-jack, almost choreographed responses to the incumbent’s actions.

I think a realization of this would be one of our opposition’s greatest strength.

A fantasy-fiction writer called George R.R Martin, in his popular Song of Ice and Fire Series, says through one of his characters, about politics, that, ‘If you play the game of thrones – you either win or die – there is no middle ground.’’  

Similarly, if the Ugandan political opposition has failed to evolve a unique character of its own in the eyes of Ugandans, for reasons either of internal incompetence, or circumstantial influence – they might just as well choose to perfect what they have proven good at – playing Museveni’s game.

Instead of hoodwinking both themselves and the Ugandan electorate that they represent a new brand of responsible, altruistic politics – they might as well come out clean, take off the gloves, and face-off with General Museveni in the bare-knuckle brawl in the mud that has become African politics.

I do not consider this an altogether un-beneficial approach.

For one, it will save on time and effort spent, on the opposition politicians’ part, building up delusions of grandeur, and on the voters’ part, illusions of a Utopian political salvation.

But, more crucially, it will also allow us to see ourselves for what we really are – mere mortals; and thus see politics with more realistic lenses.

While, for instance, I don’t think Kizza Besigye, Olara Otunnu and their ilk would make ideal Presidents, my preference being for a much younger and progressive person, I think their ascendency to the Presidency, in 2016 hopefully, will allow for two important things.

One – breathing space for a much needed national reflection on who we are and where we need to go as Ugandans. Space that the hermetic fear of post-Museveni  anarchy has denied us.

Two – it will create an atmosphere of and respect for transition as a healthy societal component; and will re-introduce the concept of ‘dispensability’ as a reality for non-performers, be they common-men or Commanders in Chief.

My advice therefore to Uganda’s opposition would be – embrace Amama Mbabazi and David Sejussa. 
Not necessarily as bosom friends, but as necessary allies in the impending face-off against what has now become a common foe – the incumbent.

History has shown us that, you don’t have to like someone to work with them; all you need is a shared dislike for something or someone.

In George R.R. Martin’s books mentioned above, on which the popular television series Game of Thrones is based, when Renley Baratheon, one of the claimants to the throne is slain, his army is left leaderless and in chaos, marked rebels to the sitting King. 

But in a stroke of political expediency and genius, one of the King’s advisors counsels against condemning these soldiers, but rather advises granting them an amnesty and inviting them to join the royal army, which eventually turns the war in the King’s favor.

Any crimes these ex-rebels might have committed could always be punished, AFTER, the war, he reasoned. But to win the war – then – was the main objective.

In the same way, the battle in Ugandan politics now isn’t about egos or political ‘righteousness’  - it is about transition and opening up space for national dialogue. 

If Amama Mbabazi or David Tinye can provide this transition – so be it.

Remember, any crimes they may have committed can always be punished, AFTER, the war.

It is not about who has more blood on their hands or sole more money – after-all, no single Ugandan is flawless. We are all guilty of one ‘sin’ or other. 

Why don’t we sinners bunch up and escort off stage a self-proclaimed ‘holy-man’ in the name of Yoweri. 

After-all, can an angel rule among fiends? 

Like rules like – I think.

A favorite symbol of mine is religion, and in this case, ecumenicalism.

While most religions think of each other as no more than falsehoods – and essentially believe that each other’s followers will burn in the hottest hell, they often cooperate out of necessity. 

For example, Muslims believe that all Christians will go to hell, and many have done a good job of dispatching them though Jihad. 

Similarly, Christians think of Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus and - other Christian denominations too! -  as lost souls, and indeed dispatched many of them to hell through their historical crusades.

This mutual wish for each other’s decimation and eternal damnation however, hasn’t prevented Muslims and Christians and Mormons and etc, world-over, from uniting against God’s (which god?) ultimate enemy – the devil!

Would we?