Why TDA is not yet finished

Mr Mbabazi and Dr Besigye at TDA headquarters recently

Mid last week came the news that the Opposition coalition called The Democratic Alliance (TDA) had failed, after several days of negotiation and suspense, to select a joint presidential candidate for the 2016 general election.

There was genuine disappointment among the long-suffering public at this development. Ugandans have grown used to the difficulty by the Opposition parties to unite; but it still came as a disappointment.

One of the effects of this could be to dampen the mood among the adult population, a large number of whom could decide that there is no point bothering to turn up to vote in 2016. The lower the voter turnout, the more it usually favours the incumbent.

More than a year of voter registration and voter education could be undone just by this one failure by the TDA to produce a common flag bearer.

Whereas the TDA’s failure to achieve a common position was only over the presidential candidate, the NRM’s situation is the inverse: it is in general agreement only over the positions of party chairman.

In almost all district and parliamentary contests, there is bitterness brewing within the NRM that will soon make the TDA deadlock seem in retrospect like it was only a gentleman’s disagreement.

On Friday afternoon, September 25, however, a section of TDA gave a nod to former prime minister Amama Mbabazi as its joint presidential candidate.

A closer look at the TDA reveals some interesting features. Right now it is coming under criticism over its failure to produce a joint candidate.

However, it is the most solid joint venture between the various Opposition parties and civil society that Uganda has yet seen since 1986.

It has come up with branded products, from a flag to banners.

On Friday afternoon, September 25, a faction of the Uganda Peoples Congress (UPC) party loyal to Jimmy Akena stormed the TDA offices at Naguru demanding to know why Olara Otunnu had been included among the “eminent people” in the TDA without consulting the UPC and why the UPC flag was being flown at the TDA office without permission from Akena.

Even then, Akena added, the UPC was willing to work with the TDA provided they came to an understanding over a number of issues. The Democratic Party led by some of its top officials also drove to the TDA offices in a show of support for the DP’s preferred joint presidential candidate Amama Mbabazi.

In other words, far from falling apart following the deadlock over a joint presidential flag bearer, the TDA appears to be gaining new life beyond its closed-door summit meetings and press conferences. It is now spilling over into the popular street and into party activism.

The fact that all roads, so to speak, are still leading to the TDA offices indicates that there is a perception within Opposition political circles that the TDA is the grouping of the moment.

Knowing the pettiness of Ugandan politics, it is also a likely signal that the TDA either has got a lot of money or is about to get a lot of money, most probably from the Western donor countries.

What is likely to happen is that eventually there will be three groups contesting the 2016 general election: the ruling NRM, the main Opposition party the FDC led by Kizza Besigye (or a dominant pro-Besigye section of the FDC), and the TDA led by Mbabazi, with backing by several political parties and pressure groups.

The FDC, which has a substantial national following, will now be a stand-alone party in the 2016 election.
Where does this leave the political situation?

The net winner in all this, of course, is Mbabazi. He originally sought to contest for the NRM party flag, was pushed out of the running and decided to contest the 2016 election as an independent appealing to support from a part of the NRM loyal to him.

With the TDA, Mbabazi gets to head a coalition of parties. The TDA, in effect, becomes Mbabazi’s “party”, while at the same time he still retains a significant following in the NRM, making him a peculiar hybrid of presidential candidate, appealing both to parts of the Opposition and parts of the NRM.

We shall start hearing callers into radio stations, some saying “I am NRM and supporting Mbabazi”, while others will identify themselves as “TDA supporting Mbabazi”. TDA will now become a code word for Mbabazi.

This is exactly what the TDA needed in the first place although it did not have the words to express it – the best shot at the presidency not just for the 2016 but the 1996 to 2011 elections would be a person who appeals both to the traditional, some might say angry, Opposition, and the more “moderate”, reform-minded section of the NRM.
This is how the NRM came to power and consolidated it in 1986. Having achieved a military victory in January 1986, it still lacked long-standing political support across the country.
By creating a broad-based government that incorporated selected figures from the UPC, CP, and DP, along with the group of supporters it had come with from Luweero Triangle and parts of western Uganda, the NRM came to represent the majority of Uganda.
Mbabazi in some way is becoming a re-invention of that 1986 NRM government – NRM support as his core base but now enlarged to include several political parties. The TDA of 2015 is the NRM of 1986.

Those who rejected Mbabazi as a TDA candidate might not have foreseen this broad-based coalition not only of Opposition parties but merging the Opposition with the anti-Museveni NRM.

The very thing that makes Mbabazi too suspiciously NRM to lead the Opposition TDA and at the same time too suspiciously Opposition to continue to claim he still belongs to the NRM, is what makes him the most ideal Opposition presidential candidate since 1996.

Pro-Otunnu UPC members will turn to the TDA, pro-Mao DP members too will identify with the TDA. Some pro-Muntu FDC members will find solace in the TDA, as will anti-Museveni/pro-Mbabazi NRM members.

This is one of history’s ironies. Amama Mbabazi, the man widely blamed for being the mastermind behind the intrigues within the NRM since 1986 and even from 1981 to 1985, and blamed by the Opposition, the media and civil society for orchestrating much of the draconian character that is the NRM government, perhaps becomes the unifier of the country.

www.twitter.com/timkalyegira
Facebook: Kampala Express