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Let’s begin from the NRM/ Yoweri Museveni side of this conversation.
In 2021 – and years before that – Yoweri Museveni did not win or was never declared winner because of the strength of his manifesto. He was declared winner because he is Yoweri Museveni.
In fact, for Museveni and team, presenting a manifesto is simply a procedural matter. It is to tick a box of the campaign. Otherwise, bwana Yoweri Museveni is the manifesto himself – in both promise and practice.
Thus, anyone trying to beat NRM/Yoweri Museveni candidature has to counter the manifesto that the NRM presents: Yoweri Museveni. Indeed, in 2021, the National Unity Platform (NUP), fully understood this realty.
They confronted the only manifesto that the NRM/Yoweri Museveni candidature presented: Yoweri Museveni. Thus, their most viral and most chanted slogan – which summarised their manifesto – was: “We Are Removing A Dictator.”
No other policy issue was needed. To their credit, NUP successfully resisted (elitist) media pressure, and NRM surrogates push for a policy discussion. It didn’t matter. The voters agreed. One could actually argue that with Museveni being the manifesto that the NRM presented, NUP also presented a one single-manifesto: Bobi Wine.
That there were no policy debates, and close scrutiny of the manifesto was not a weakness of their campaign. But their genius. You fight an opponent on their terms. The issues were Museveni’s way of doing things or a new way (embodied by Bobi Wine) of doing things.
THE WAVE
My wonderful friend, Dr Stella Nyanzi told me after her 2021 electoral loss that her euphoric neighbours had returned and gathered at her home excited about her pending victory: “We ticked the umbrella. All of us in line were ticking the umbrella; you are winning,” they said to her.
She looked at them in absolute amazement. I also learned about a car of five friends driving from Makerere University to a polling station in Kamwokya were all excited about polling for Stella Nyanzi. In fact, this was the first time they were voting and were doing so for Kyagulanyi and Stella Nyanzi.
All were chanting. “wolaba umbrella tikinga,” which is, “just tick wherever you see an umbrella” before one curious person reminded them that if they were going to vote for Stella, they have to tick the key, because Stella was FDC.
They had a big laugh and thanked their friend profusely. In fact, for Stella Nyanzi, her consolation, she told me, was knowing she had lost not to anyone else, but to Bobi Wine himself.
Have we forgotten that candidate (from the Ssese Island?) who had withdrawn from the race about a month to voting but the Electoral Commission could not take their name off the ballot paper. She would learn about her victory while in downtown Owino Market doing her routine shopping. Probably, she hadn’t even voted.
The point I’m making here is that if voters weren’t interested in learning about the actual candidates, their faces nor their promises, there would be no way they would have cared to learn their manifesto of the entire party.
But this was not that they didn’t care about the post-Museveni policies. They had only postponed this to another day. Indeed, here, Bobi Wine presented the best fight strategy: fighting fire with fire. The truth is election was a symbolic gesture for a fight.
Parliament was the battleground – and the electorate made sure to send enough fighters for the battle ahead. This is the identity that NUP embodied.
A CONFUSING IDENTITY
Somehow, five years later, NUP has been successfully bullied into becoming a policy- driven party. This has been a tempting distraction. This has been the yearning for NRM surrogates to shield their man from directly confronted.
It might not be failure necessarily, but a loss of identity. I know, some NUP surrogates have argued that this is an upgrade. But that they are foregrounding policies and not simply removing Museveni is to misunderstand their identity.
Again, Museveni did not win because of a superior manifesto, neither is he currently campaigning on the strength of his manifesto. Uganda’s challenge is not policies being implemented. Uganda’s challenge is a manager challenge.
The CEO of the country is indiscipline and terribly corrupted – and has become a corrupting influence on those around him. Thus, those interested in beating the president, while ought to tick the box of having a manifesto, ought to endlessly craft themselves as battle-hardened fighters against this CEO.
That NUP abandoned its “We Are Removing a Dictator” slogan to a less aggressive, and a meek and mild statement, “Protest Vote” is a story in itself. But more importantly, it is a loss or strategic identity.
Perhaps this will be a story for another day. The Medard Ssegona-Mathius Walukaga controversy over the party ticket has made this loss of identity even more apparent – but also confusing.
Without speculating on the internal wranglings and gossip about an external conspiracy (including Ssegona-Mpuuga-Bagala) against Bobi Wine, one sees a crisis of identity. The NUP of 2021 would easily defend an artiste over a seasoned advocate.
But a policy-driven NUP has been met with plenty of push back over sidelining a seasoned advocate. But also, besides my friend Hon. Francis Zaake, many of NUP bigwigs appear to be enjoying the soft life that a technocratic opposition identity enables.
This is even more confusing especially for folks who had become disenchanted with technocratic Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) and had wished for a more combative politics thus their embrace of NUP.
yusufkajura@gmail.com
The author is a political theorist based at Makerere University.
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