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I will always return to Kalundi Serumaga’s seminal essay “Parliament is the Bribe” published in The Monitor on 17 March 2024.
Written in the midst of the online campaign, #ParliamentaryExhibition which exposed humongous haemorrhage in parliament – all of it legal under different code names – Serumaga sought to remind country that the original bribe was actually the house itself.
The way it is organised. The object of its existence. Serumaga so succinctly demonstrated that the house only masqueraded as a legislative arm. But in truth was a trap for the elite, the smart activism causing problems on the outside.
Despite looking benign as one has to campaign and get voted, seeing oneself as joining the platform where decision-making happens, succumbing to the temptation to enter parliament – or any elective position – was the original sin. The original bribe.
Serumaga noted that the “ruling National Resistance Movement regime learnt from the instability of the Amin period… that “stability” comes from the giving the elite a sense of inclusion, without any real power.”
Once the activist who would be joining opposition forces to fight the regime accepts the invitation to join an electoral position under the auspices of the same regime – on the pretext of influencing meaningful change from the inside – upon arrival, they are overwhelmed by perks and other offers of comfort.
All these are claimed to be their legal entitlements. But the idea is to buy the activist a soft life, make them forget their wretched brothers whom they claim to represent.
Powerfully, Serumaga noted that “to talk about “bribery” in our Parliament is to miss the bigger reality that Parliament itself – as the primary channel through which the regime can widely, safely and continually interact with the political class as a whole – is the bribe.”
To this end, all those who have vied for electoral positions and have won them can only congratulate themselves as having fallen in things. But chants of claiming to representing the wananchi is but a nonsense.
MUSEVENI’S NON-EXISTING OPPOSITION
On the one hand, as explored above, the opposition has been finished off by this system of corruption and bribery – the electoral office itself – which is designed to attract, trap and corrupt new entrants into electoral politics.
That when you see these men and women speaking big English on the floor of parliament or in the different offices, their role is to act opposition and keep the façade of opposition.
They could have been good-intentioned at the beginning, but their good intentions got corrupted by the structures in which they find themselves trapped. Their insignificance is not their own making or own weakness.
But rather the design of the system in which they find themselves entrapped – although soon become comfortable with. On the other hand, Museveni has thrown many, many roadblocks at people interested in building an actual opposition under a democratic order.
He has not only made it difficult to organise, but those who find themselves able to organise come under an immense of violence: jailing, threats, sabotage, money, intrusion, death, conscription, among others.
In some cases, the man has pushed through legislation to make it difficult for people to organise. This is the list of things that autocrats do. The difference with Museveni is that all this has been technocratized, and depoliticised.
If it is not legalized authoritarianism, it is transactional politics. One cannot have a genuine opposition under such circumstances. One of the things I struggle to understand is the many wonderful people who despite these troubling electoral-political dynamics still volunteer themselves in Museveni’s electoral circus.
While I believe many (especially newcomers) would be convinced the man will lose an election and concede defeat – it takes some naivety to believe this, too – I don’t understand when after agreeing that the election was stolen, they still serve their elective positions. Money alone does not explain this contradiction.
THE ACTUAL OPPOSITION IS WATCHING
In a far-reaching article in The Observer last week, Dr Busingye Kabumba of the School of Law at Makerere University noted that the recently concluded election saw more soldiers than electoral officers.
Indeed, the columns of soldiers seen in every nook and cranny of Uganda, were not looking at those interested in electoral positions. These are allies – most of them actually funded by NRM itself. But the non-voting crowd, which is simply watching the circus unfold before their eyes constitutes the actual opposition.
They are often invisible, amorphous, and mostly unorganised. While majority of them speak in whispers as they fear for their lives, their anger is unmistakeable; it is palpable from a distance.
You may encounter an angry voice online or a caller to a radio station. They jeer at themselves; talk to themselves as they walk the dusty streets of Uganda. They sit in silence at empty hospitals.
They walk with their heads down, and oftentimes, cry in silence. When one of Museveni’s allies kicks the bucket (a close or distant relation), they’ll quietly, sometimes openly celebrate.
Yoweri Museveni and co., might not see these people, but him and team know about their existence really well. This explains why they are not endlessly policing their shadows in the streets, but are also quick to jail or seek to conscript any icon from among them, who would seek to guide them towards revolutionary action.
Gen. Museveni understands that there are many ways of imposing oneself onto a people. While the autocrats who came before him did so through decrees, nowadays this happens through the technic of elections.
But Museveni also understands that many Ugandans see through this circus. Indeed, majority of the crowds that greeted Bobi Wine campaign rallies are not voters because of laziness, but are men and women who have seen through the circus of elections.
yusufkajura@gmail.com
The author is a political theorist based at Makerere University.
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