Why Museveni, Mbabazi outshine Besigye

There are two or three striking things about the three top presidential contenders since they kicked off their campaign trail on November 9. For avoidance of doubt, I am referring to Dr Kizza Besigye, Mr Yoweri Museveni and Mr Amama Mbabazi (not in order of importance or voter popularity).

The packaging of their election messages is quite instructive. But more instructive is the tussle between candidate Museveni and his NRM rival, former prime minister Mbabazi, about who should be condemned or credited for the NRM failures or achievements respectively.

Their claims and counter-claims against each other irretrievably suggest both are lying about their roles in government. And if they are telling the truth, they are not telling the whole truth.

Besigye looks more honest in his message than Museveni and Mbabazi but their messages are superior, better packaged and more effective than his.

Mbabazi has repeatedly told voters that he should not be blamed for the NRM wrongs or failures he is currently accusing the government of, because he was too powerless to change things in government and that all the Executive power was in President Museveni’s impenetrable grip.

In other words, he is shifting the liability to President Museveni. But surprisingly, when the praise for NRM achievements come up, Mbabazi is quick to claim a share of the credit. He has reminded voters that NRM has achieved a lot and his presidential bid is motivated by the desire to carry that success forward uninterrupted.

The puzzling question then is; if Mbabazi was so powerless that he could not stop failures while still in government, how could he then have been powerful enough to take influential decisions that led to such NRM successes for which he is seeking to claim credit?

I cannot tell with precision, whether this is dishonesty or selective memory but certainly it is one of the two or both. It cannot lie outside that.

On the other hand, Mr Museveni dismisses Mbabazi’s contribution to the NRM and instead says he was a failure and his tenure in office was retrogressive.

Addressing the media in Gulu on Monday, Mr Museveni said Mbabazi was a key decision maker of government as prime minister and dismissed his claim that he had no power to influence anything. In short, Museveni was telling Mbabazi to own up the government shortcomings during his tenure or shut up.

“In most cases I don’t attend Cabinet. If you are a prime minister of a country, you are running government. The government is under the prime minister,” Museveni stated.

He portrays Mbabazi as a powerful prime minister who influenced most government decisions, which led to both failures or success. However, when it comes to the achievements, Museveni takes away all the credit from him. No credit is attributed to Mbabazi, the man he describes as “a key decision maker” on government issues.

So was Mbabazi “a key decision maker” only on government projects which failed but an “insignificant decision maker” in successful ones?

Both leaders are not being sincere on what they are telling Ugandans. Mbabazi cannot claim to have been too powerless to stop any failure in government but at the same time seeks credit for being responsible for the NRM’s successful programmes. Museveni too cannot tell us that Mbabazi was responsible only for failures but the achievements.
If they want to own the NRM success, they must also accept accountability for the wrongs. That is what honesty demands.
Away from that, another striking aspect about the presidential candidates is their campaign messages.

Museveni and Mbabazi seem to have more appealing and effective messages than Dr Besigye. This is why. Mbabazi and Museveni have two categories of campaign messages, but Besigye has one uniform type of message.

Museveni and Mbabazi general messages on national issues such as improving health services, education, infrastructure and employment; and the specific messages for respective local communities, which Besigye lacks.

In every area, they pick out a sticking local issue and promise a specific solution. On the other hand Besigye is consumed with condemning Museveni and the NRM wrongs or failures in government generally but makes no specific redress for specific challenges that affect the local people.
His messages of human rights, holding leaders accountable, reducing government spending, Parliament and Cabinet size, etc, are good and nationalistic but they appeal mainly to the minority elite or the educated with a broader national outlook.

They are of minimal appeal to the majority peasants whose appreciation of politics is limited to their localities or to their constituencies at most.

The lowly educated peasants want to hear what answer you have for them on their local impassable road, health centre which has no theatre, ambulance to evacuate pregnant mothers from the villages, a school which lacks examination centre number or people who have been evicted by government from a particular area, etc.

In contrast, Museveni has made national promises but also broken them down for the local people to absorb his message. He has promised a secondary school in each sub-county, upgrade certain hospitals, etc. He breaks down his message to bring its impact closer to the people ordinary person.
On his campaign trail, Museveni has promised to improve infrastructure, healthcare, education, etc, but has also singled out local issues for specific redress regardless of whether he will deliver those promises or not.

At least he has informed the voters that he is aware of the problem affecting them. In Acholi last week, he promised compensation for veterans, victims of the LRA insurgency and those who lost their cattle to Karimojong rustlers.

He also promised to tarmac the Rwenkunyu-Masindi Port-Lira-Acholi Bur road and the Patongo-Corner-Kilak-Abim road. These are local issues specific to Acholi and have a unique and direct appeal to the residents.

The package of Mbabazi’s message is also more or less the same. In West Nile this week, Mbabazi pledged to establish an army brigade to protect the local people from border insecurity between South Sudan and DR Congo that has disturbed them for many years.

He pledged to solve their electricity problem by taking solar power there. When he went to Luweero, Mbabazi promised to compensate the Bush War claimants and the retired army veterans. He was telling voters what they had been yearning to hear. He touched their hearts.

Such messages make greater appeal to them than the elitist and abstract topics on economy, rule of law and human rights, etc, which the peasants cannot easily understand.

This does not mean that he should not make national pledges for the mass audience.
Compare this to Besigye’s messages on his campaign trail.

He has been condemning the NRM and Museveni for failing to repair roads, poor healthcare, poor education and lack of scholastic materials in public schools, miserable budget allocation to agriculture etc and the message is the same wherever he goes. He does not address local issues that are specific to certain areas. His campaign strategists must be sleeping.

When his vehicle got stuck in Kisoro and Ntungamo districts and it had to be pushed out from the mud by the locals at the start of the campaign trail, he only condemned the government for the mess. He made no mention that he would tarmac those particular roads.

Last Sunday, when he again got stuck in Buginyanya in Bulambuli District and called off some rallies due to impassable roads, Besigye repeated his condemnation of the government for failing to fix the roads for 30 years.

But he absolutely made no promise to tarmac the road on which he was stuck. While in Lumino on the same day, he blamed the government for lying to the people for six years about tarmacking the Musita-Namayingo-Majanji-Busia road.

But again, he made no promise that he himself would tarmac the road if he is elected president. Unless he repackages his election message, he will remain highly popular with the elite and urbanites who have a broader outlook on national issues but remain fatally alienated from the majority peasants and the illiterates. Ironically their vote carries equal weight.